Devotional: Rest from the Days of Adversity

Psalm 94:12-14

Blessed is the man whom You instruct, O Lord,

And teach out of Your law,

13 

That You may give him rest from the days of adversity,

Until the pit is dug for the wicked.

14 

For the Lord will not cast off His people,

Nor will He forsake His inheritance.

15 

But judgment will return to righteousness,

And all the upright in heart will follow it.

I have been returning to Psalm 94 again and again over the last couple of weeks.  If you have not read the entire Psalm, please do.  It will encourage you in these crazy, evil days.

We see here that the Lord blesses those who are teachable.  It says, "Blessed is the man whom You instruct, O Lord, and teach out of Your law..."  We have to be teachable in order to be instructed and taught.

A teachable person is humble, willing to learn.  It seems that in this Psalm, the writer is contrasting the evil doer with the one whom the Lord is able to teach.  The difference is humility versus pride. Verses 6-7 show the pride of the wicked. Contrast this with the man whom the Lord teaches (see the verses above).

They slay the widow and the stranger,

And murder the fatherless.

7 

Yet they say, “The Lord does not see,

Nor does the God of Jacob understand.”

The person whom the Lord teaches out of His Law will gain the benefit of rest from the days of adversity. It isn't saying that we will be taken out of adversity or escape the days of adversity, but that we will have rest from the days of adversity.  

Things are evil and crazy in our nation right now.  Adversity may very well come to you and me in the form of wicked people if not through the regular rigors of living and aging. The biggest problem with adversity is not the physical temporal problems that it causes so much as the emotional, spiritual toll it takes on us. When we are taught out of God's Word about the nature of God, the sovereignty of God over all things, and the glorious future in heaven we have waiting for us, we can have rest in our souls from the adversity that surrounds us.

We need to be willing to be taught God's Word, and learn from Him the truth of all that is going on in our world. Then we can cast all our worries and anxieties on Him because He cares for us!