Psalm 119:67:
Before I was afflicted I went astray, But now I keep Your word.
We all naturally hate affliction and desire an affliction-free life. It is so painful to go through affliction, we wish it never came, and when it does come, we want it to go away soon. Today’s verse tells us about the hidden danger of a life without affliction, as well as the profound blessing of affliction in our lives.
David lays out three distinct points in this verse:
- The danger of an affliction-free life (“Before I was afflicted I went astray”)
- God’s wisdom in sending affliction
- The blessing of affliction (“But now I keep Your word”)
1. The Danger of an Affliction-Free Life
The truth of total depravity is not just a dry theological theory; it is a vital key that helps us understand the brokenness within ourselves, in others, and in the world. It sheds immense light on verses like this. The great tragedy of sin and the Fall of Adam is that his descendants have a natural inclination to always go astray. As Isaiah 53:6 puts it, “All we like sheep have gone astray.” We possess a straying nature, prone to turn away from the path that leads to God and true happiness. It is as natural for us as a sheep wandering off, and the worst part is our inability to return on our own. We often continue down the wrong path even when we know it is wrong, simply because we do not know how to find our way back.
Even after we are saved, do we become perfectly obedient? No. Remaining sin means we still stray often. The best of us, if left to ourselves, can drift out of the right way with alarming speed and run into sad, destructive places. Even after salvation, we all experience deviations. Though our hearts are generally renewed and desire to obey God fully, we find ourselves repeatedly swerving from His path, transgressing our bounds, and neglecting our duty.
Even the godly David had cause to cry out in Psalm 119:176, “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; oh, seek thy servant!” We go astray not only out of ignorance, but out of perverseness of inclination. We have hearts that love to wander; we love shifts and changes—even when they are for the worse—and make regular excursions into the ways of sin.
This straying bent is made remarkably strong and powerfully encouraged by prosperity—when life has no troubles and runs smoothly without any affliction. While a happy life without affliction is a blessing and good in itself, we are so perverse by nature that we abuse it. We often become worse rather than better because of it.
Our depravity is as deep and vast as a salty ocean: no matter how much rain falls into the sea, or how many fresh rivers flow into it, the water remains salty. That is how deeply depraved we are. Our sinful nature readily abuses God’s mercies. If it is always well with us—no troubles, uninterrupted prosperity, no changes for years—our fear of God fades, and our spirit of faith and dependence withers. We become careless, just as Psalm 55:19 describes: “Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.” That small holy fear, which should keep us from wandering, is lost. The more gently God deals with us, the more godless and secure we become. When we progress smoothly and undisturbed, facing no affliction from any side, we stubbornly refuse to change.
Don’t we see this vividly in the life of David? When he was running away and hiding in the desert from Saul—a life full of affliction—his heart was tender. It pricked his conscience when he merely cut off the lap of Saul’s garment. But after he became king, everything was prosperous. He was continually winning wars and resting in ease on a palace bed rather than the rough cave of Adulam. What happened? His conscience grew hardened. He dared to commit adultery and even plotted the death of Uriah, his faithful servant, without feeling a single prick of conscience for close to a year.
We lose our sensitivity, the tenderness of our conscience, our watchfulness against sin, and our lively spiritual diligence in prosperity when we are at ease and all things go well. Is this not a reality working in each of our souls? When things are good—a steady income, a happy family, a successful job—how careless we become!
The beginning of obedience is the mortification of the flesh, which naturally we do not care for or endure during times of ease. The flesh whispers, “Oh, come on, why should you trouble yourself?” The flesh seeks its prey, rebels, fights against the spirit, and makes us lazy in spiritual duties. We wonder, Why pray? All is well. We stop drawing close to God, neglect His Word, and slowly drift into worldly things, spending more time on empty entertainment and falling straight into sin. Besides, our desires and affections for heavenly things fade when worldly pursuits succeed according to our heart’s desire, and this coldness is not easily shaken off. Our desires insensibly settle here, and eternity loses its value to us. We indulge the flesh, harden our conscience, and plunge into the dangers of an affliction-free life.
Therefore, an affliction-free life is not always a sign of God’s favor. Sometimes God allows the people of the world to go on comfortably in their prosperity, pleasures, pride, and sins—giving them over, as Romans 1 describes. Their outward life may look full—houses, wealth, family, success, and honor—but their soul is drifting farther and farther from God and closer to hell. This is one of the most fearful judgments: when God stops correcting a person and lets him prosper in sin until he perishes.
God does not deal this way with His children. He will not allow them to wander prosperously and peacefully to destruction. Look at Psalm 73:3–5:
“For I was envious of the boastful, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no pangs in their death, but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men, nor are they plagued like other men.”
This shows the wicked can appear comfortable, prosperous, and free from trouble. But as Psalm 73:6–9 notes, this lack of trouble breeds pride and carelessness: “Therefore pride serves as their necklace; violence covers them like a garment…” Prosperity without correction feeds arrogance and sin, and it often ends in sudden ruin (Psalm 73:18–19). When the psalmist finally entered God’s house, heard His word, and realized the truth, he saw his own foolishness: “Surely You set them in slippery places; You cast them down to destruction. Oh, how they are brought to desolation, as in a moment!” Their affliction-free prosperity is not safe; it is a dangerously slippery slope leading straight to destruction.
2. God’s Wisdom in Sending Affliction
When we walk down that path of a hardening conscience and a soul-destroying fleshly life, if God does not correct us through affliction, we will grow utterly careless, our consciences will become as hardened as hot iron, and repentance will be impossible. Therefore, the gracious Lord, in His wisdom, brings diverse afflictions exactly suited to our situation to correct, humble, and bring us back into order.
He does not do it out of cruelty or delight—just as we do not punish our children with delight. Rather, our carelessness and disobedience force Him to humble us through poverty, disgrace, illness, domestic family crosses, or the various inconveniences of temporary physical life in this world, which we tend to value far too much.
When we are wandering, when we need it most, and when our abuse of prosperity cries out for it, the providence of God wisely sends the exact affliction we need. We may look at a trial and think it has no value, but Scripture promises that God precisely tailors His providential afflictions to our spiritual condition. As 1 Peter 1:6 tells us:
“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials.”
Notice the phrase: “if need be.” We need to learn that afflictions are highly necessary and seasonable—either to prevent a spiritual disease, disorder, or wrong attitude from growing within us, or to rescue us from an evil path.
Just as different physical diseases require different medicines, a single remedy cannot cure every ailment. In the same way, our souls contract various spiritual diseases and lusts that wage war against our spiritual health. Pride, envy, covetousness, lust, adulterous thoughts, hatred, bitterness, anger, outbursts of wrath, uncontrollable worldly worries, the love of the world, a constant hunger for more, an inordinate love of pleasure, and vain, time-wasting, flesh-pleasing desires—all of these have their proper, specific cures.
Consider how many sub-categories of soul diseases exist. Take pride, for instance: it has a thousand subtle forms, including spiritual pride (“Look how godly I am, how I prayed today, how much Scripture I read”), the pride of life, a lofty conceit of ourselves (“Look how rich I am, my title, my annual income, my wealth, my fine clothes”), and innumerable vanities that make us look down on others with contempt.
God’s wisdom knows the exact root cause of our spiritual disease and sends the precise affliction to heal it. We may wonder how a particular trial could possibly help. If you go to a doctor complaining of chest pain and they prescribe stomach medicine, you might wonder why—until you learn the chest pain is caused by a gastric problem. You take the medicine, and miraculously, the chest pain vanishes. God’s medicinal providences work in the exact same way, striking at the root cause not only to stop the spread of sin, but to root it out entirely and cure our souls.
- When the flesh becomes too strong—attached to bodily ease, pleasure, comfort, or sinful desires—God may send sickness, weakness, tiredness, or physical limitations to remind us that the body is temporary, but the soul is eternal.
- When the world becomes too attractive—when our hearts run after money, success, possessions, or worldly security—God may send financial loss, delay, failure, or disappointment to loosen our grip on the world and teach us to seek our treasure in Him.
- When we settle down as if this world is our permanent home, God may send losses and unrest to remind us that our true rest is in Him and the world to come.
- When pride rises in the heart—over our position, abilities, knowledge, ministry, or income—God may send shame, criticism, the loss of honor, or humbling circumstances to bring us low so we walk humbly before Him. Even the Apostle Paul needed this! In danger of being lifted up by the great revelations God gave him, Paul received a thorn in the flesh to keep him humble before the disease of pride could take root.
- When relationships become idols—depending too much on human approval, family comfort, or friendships—God may send disappointment, distance, or pain to teach us that no creature can replace the Creator.
- When prayer grows cold and we neglect the Word, becoming spiritually lazy and acting as though we can manage life without God, He may send helpless situations where human wisdom and strength fail, driving us back to dependence and crying out for His face.
- When the heart becomes hard and we resist conviction, God may send strong, painful affliction to awaken the conscience, break our spiritual sleep, and make us serious about sin and eternity.
- When secret sins are growing beneath the surface, God may expose them through a trial—just as He told David He would bring his secret sins into the open—so they can be confessed and healed.
God does not send the exact same remedy to everyone. He varies His discipline according to the specific disease of the soul. What humbles one person may not humble another, and what awakens one soul may not awaken a different one. Therefore, in perfect wisdom, God chooses the affliction that is most suitable to cure, correct, humble, and bring His child back to obedience.
He sends the affliction that is sure to work, knowing how to strike the right vein—just as He cured Paul’s pride with a troublesome physical affliction. Anyone who studies providence can observe the wisdom of God in the specific kind of affliction He chooses and how well suited it is to the work at hand. God does all things in the right number, weight, and measure.
God orders, removes, and continues afflictions as He sees fit for our profit. A variety of afflictions may meet together in the lives of God’s dearest children, because even the best believers harbor many corruptions that need to be discovered, subdued, and cured, alongside many graces that need to be developed and tested. As James 1:2 reminds us: “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.” One trouble finishes its work and hands us over to another to continue and complete the healing. Often, we force God to prolong our afflictions because we are slow to learn the lesson.
The afflicting providences of God can be deeply mysterious in how they come upon us and by what means. Sometimes everything outside may look fine and well, but inside our own hearts, mental torture, tensions, and fears make life a burden. People may have no peace, imagining a hundred wrong things, filled with fear and tension without knowing why. God can make a person uncomfortable and full of disquiet so that, even while lacking nothing outwardly, they are not at ease—in fact, they are more troubled than those with massive external problems.
Without the peace and joy that God’s presence brings, they worry constantly. It is God alone who can touch the conscience in this way, making prosperous men restless day and night because His hand weighs heavily upon them. There is a secret moth eating away at their contentment, leaving them under terror and discouragement. This, too, is an affliction from God, teaching us that even if we possess everything the world offers, nothing can be truly enjoyed apart from His blessed presence, seeking Him, and living close to Him.
So we have seen two major truths in this verse: first, the danger of an affliction-free life (“Before I was afflicted I went astray”), and second, God’s wisdom in sending affliction. Next time, we will explore the third point: the blessing of affliction (“But now I keep Your word”), moving from a state of wandering to attentiveness in our duty.
Application
The first step in benefiting from affliction is learning to view it properly. The writer of Hebrews addresses those who are discouraged, quoting Proverbs 3:11–12:
“My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the Lord loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.”
If we want to profit from afflictions, we must avoid two faulty extremes. The first extreme is despising the correction—being careless, unaffected, taking nothing seriously, developing an iron heart, and thinking everyone suffers so you just endure it without ever changing. The second extreme is total discouragement—thinking, “Oh, God has abandoned me.”
That discouragement is precisely why we must remember Psalm 119:67, deeply meditating upon it so we can profit from all the chastenings of the Lord. Let us learn to view the trials in our lives as gentle reminders to turn back to God’s Word, because that is the ultimate purpose of affliction. We have wandered from God and from our duty for too long; before God takes another rod in His hand to scourge us more severely, let us recognize the purpose of our afflictions.
Let us continue to meditate on this rich verse, viewing our afflictions in the proper light: recognizing both the danger of an affliction-free life and the tender, perfect wisdom of God in sending affliction.