Verse of the Day for June 8

Verse nineteen is one of the most honest sentences in the psalms. Many are the afflictions of the righteous. Not a few. Not only for those who have wandered. Many, and for the righteous.

Some of us were taught, quietly, that trouble means we did something wrong. This verse clears that up. Faithful people suffer, often and in more than one way. The psalm says so plainly and without apology.

Then it adds the second fact with the same plainness. but the LORD delivereth him out of them all. One line holds both truths and does not let either cancel the other.

Clarity is not the same as having every answer. It is seeing what is actually true. Here two things are true together: the afflictions are many, and the deliverance is complete. The timing is not given. Some of it comes in this life and some waits for the next. The verse does not promise when. It promises that none will be left out.

If you are sitting in a clinic queue or at a kitchen table with unpaid bills, trying to work out what your trouble means, start here. It does not mean God has left. It means you are in the first half of verse nineteen.

Trouble is not proof that you have failed God.

The deliverance in verse nineteen covers every affliction, even though it does not give a date.