Daily Devotion

February 10, 2006

(Psa 119:50 KJV)  This is my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.

These are some of David’s afflictions.  He had to repent from his love affair with Bath-Sheba.  He lost his first son and had a loathsome disease.  His daughter was raped by his son who was in turn murdered by his other son, in front of whom, he had to flee Jerusalem in disgrace. In the midst of all this, and without the help of modern psychology or of mood-altering drugs, he had to run his kingdom and fight surrounding enemies.  

David, the young man who protected the house of Israel against its enemies with the same integrity and courage as when he protected his father’s sheep came to a time when he lost the innocent child-like faith he inherited from his father and indulged in disobedience.  The consequential results of his actions drove him to the limits of his heart’s endurance.  This “limit”, is where he found his God in a new and mature way. He had learned the age-old lesson, “when all you have left is God, you suddenly realize that God is enough”; and “when all you’ve got left to stand on is the Word, you realized then that the Word is enough.”

When he was discouraged and weary of the battle, it is when he heard the small voice of the Lord that the prophet Elijah was renewed (1 Kings 19:12-13).  When after fasting for forty days and forty nights, Jesus, in His physically weakened state has a face-to-face confrontation with Satan, it is the Word that gives Jesus the strength to withstand him (Mat 4:1-11).  

Are you afflicted?  Are you depressed?  Are you sad?  The same Word that “quickened” King David will also “quicken” you.  His Word is His gift to you, His gift of power, strength and comfort.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
(Col 3:16 KJV)