The plowers plowed upon my back;
They made their furrows long.
— Psalm 129:3
Everyone who loves the Lord will experience affliction. The psalmist vividly describes his affliction after many years of experience: “I was made so low. I was put in a place of abasement. I was put in a place where no one respected me, no one appreciated me, and no one realized my desire or consecration. I was so low, like the ground. And while I was so low, a plow came to cut me. My back was plowed, and it cut me so deeply. Not only was I oppressed in a low place, but my very person was cut and wounded.”
The discipline of the Lord always comes at exactly the right place and at the right time. He plows “on our back.” Often we would complain, “Lord, why me?” Especially when we are young, we have a lot of self-pity. But after many years of being plowed by the Lord’s governmental hand, we come to realize that every instance of plowing was at the right time and in the right place. As we go through it, it seems that the Lord is unreasonable, even irrational. But when it is finished we recognize that it was exactly what we needed to grow.
Adapted from The Journey of Life, pages 81-82.
Tomorrow: “It’s All Right”