“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19)

“The Lord will not abandon him to His power or let him be condemned when he is brought to trial” (Psalm 37:33).

This is the conquerors anthem throughout one’s troubles. “In all these things we are more than…” God’s deliverance often appears to have been delayed and sometimes liberation may not come until we’re in the ‘jaws of the lion’; until we’re beyond the eleventh hour.

God never delays but sometimes our interpretation falsely makes God out to be the One Who is unpunctual. God has the designated moment in time to answered prayer and deliverance; it is never too late and neither too early. David said, “My times are in Your hands” (Psalm 31:15); do we believe that for ourselves? Are we assured God is perfectly acquainted with all of our ways and that He cares for us above and beyond we can ever comprehend? How we react in certain circumstances quickly reveals whether we trust God or not. Even if our faith is weak we have such a merciful God Who stoops to strengthen that: “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”

That we encounter affliction does not rule out God’s faithfulness; because we experience God’s delays never means He has postponed our deliverance. It is through adversity that we are actually delivered from a bigger enemy: self. The biggest tyranny in this world is sin, not a totalitarian or communist government. Many believers reduce God’s ways to just releasing the Christian from heartache, but God has so much more in store than we can ever imagine. God’s purpose in our lives is that His Truths are made tangibly real, no matter what predicament we find ourselves in.

What grounds did Paul have in saying to King Agrippa, “…I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might be free as I am – except for these chains” (Acts 26:29)? I don’t hesitate to say that Paul was the most liberated Christian that walked this earth and yet his physical circumstances would be the most oppressive to many of us who call ourselves Christians; Paul being in chains was freer than many of us who have so much freedom to travel anywhere all over the world at our own whim and pleasure.

When God declared through Isaiah in chapter 43:2 “When you pass through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned and the flame shall not consume you” – that wasn’t necessarily implying that we wouldn’t feel physical pain if God calls us to suffer in such a way, or our exemption from trials that take their toll emotionally, but it does mean we shall not be consumed or destroyed; our souls are eternally intact with God. Recall what Jesus said in Luke 21:18 “You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends and some of you will be put to death. You will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives.” God’s ways may not always guarantee our physical safety and for any Christian to presume on that (unless God has stated otherwise) may lead to great disappointment. We must always remember and bank on the promise that God’s grace will always enable us to endure whatever He has called us to. Let this be stated, that the greater the suffering, the greater God’s grace will be manifested; those that have gone through immense hardships have grown rich in faith and grace; they are more separated from the world and live nearer to eternity; those who have tasted severe trials have known a joy inexpressible. That doesn’t entail we won’t endure seasons of weeping lasting through the ‘long hours of the night’, but it will result in praise and glory beyond description; we have the promise that joy shall come in the morning. Didn’t David state that there were periods (how long, we cannot determine) where his food was nothing but tears day and night? With assurance David said, “You Who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth You will bring me up again. You will increase my greatness and comfort me again” (Psalm 71:20-21). None of David’s trials left him in darkness; not once did God desert Him but instead delivered him out of all His troubles.

Affliction promotes and sanctifies the child of God while the unbeliever is left to its merciless hands; there is always hope for the believer, while the unbeliever has no assurance but to vainly fend for themselves. Affliction wounds and destroys the wicked; affliction wounds, heals and builds up the believer; affliction takes away what the unbeliever has, while the believer is led to treasures of darkness and riches in secret places. It is in the breaking of ourselves that we know the fragrance of God’s oil overflowing in our lives.

Have we been brought to our senses that to go through a trial in its entirety ensures the kind of deliverance more than we ever anticipated and longed for, that He indeed fashions trials in order to bring us to glory? Through suffering the saints are being perfected.

The Christian is guaranteed to encounter bitter moments; they will come and they will test us for all we are worth. We will know those times of sifting where the only thing that is real and solid is the Object of our faith; nothing else and no companion will cause us to stand and continue running the race except the God Who has called us to Himself. Slowly but surely He will remove every prop we have relied on until our naked trust in Him alone has been exercised.

The Christian is not destroyed by adversity, indeed he or she cannot be; we have the incorruptible seed of God within us: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed…” and the very purpose of it is that the life of Jesus will be manifest in our mortal flesh (2 Corinthians 4:8-11).

There is never, absolutely never, a situation where God cannot deliver us, no matter how severe the situation looks. The odds may be against us to an overwhelming degree; attempting to make sense of our predicament leaves us all the more confused; finding the solution seems to work temporarily, only to fail and have the doors slam shut; we may feel hemmed in with no possible and affordable way out; our prayers may feel like shallow breaths and desperate pleas for God to intervene. All that we are and all that we can do at times is to trust God with every fibre of our being. This is where we resign ourselves to the will of God. What becomes of greatest importance is not so much our deliverance and ease of circumstances, but that we know God amidst them; what our hearts begin to really yearn for is that God draws ever so near to us. The priceless and unsurpassable moments are when God Himself comforts you and lifts you from your despondent state, that He indeed assures you He is for you and not against you; the enemy would have has feel that God is most displeased with us, even to the point of insinuating we are God’s enemies. Oh! These are the fiery assaults of the accuser of the brethren and they are inextinguishable unless we are clothed in God’s might, clothed in the confidence that we are the apple of God’s eye. The devil is not stupid as some Christians insinuate; he far surpasses any human wisdom at its greatest. The believer knowing the pitfalls of leaning to their own wisdom and who therefore trusts wholly and solely in God, is an undefeatable warrior against the kingdom of Satan.

Christ never said we shall be free from troubles, but He most certainly stated we are to have trouble-free hearts. This is most definitely possible for any child of God. “Be anxious for nothing” Paul stated, “but in everything [absolutely everything, no matter how small or big] by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” If we do these things then the peace of God will garrison our hearts and minds. We may feel too weak to trust, swamped by overwhelming fears, but God will not turn us away as we cry out for Him to strengthen us to trust Him. God loves honesty and responds promptly to prayers from the heart but loathes a pretentious display of eloquence that is far from being real. Oh that Christians were more real!

“The Lord will not abandon him to His power or let him be condemned when he is brought to trial” – sometimes God permits us to reach those moments where we feel all ray of hope has been lost. This is the hour of trial where circumstances seemingly dictate a dreadful sentence: “For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God Who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. On Him we have set our hope that He will deliver us again” (2 Corinthians 1:8-10). The Christian is far from immunity to frequent trouble, yet in such times we are not abandoned; deliverance will come. We may be brought to trial, well beyond the eleventh hour, the verdict on the verge of pronouncement but the sentence shall not be passed.

Can we trust God despite the present tide that is against us? Isn’t He worthy of such trust? If we look back over time and recall the faithfulness of God, especially when we feared the worst to transpire, even when we were faithless, God kept us, His promises were fulfilled, the dawn came and a new song arose from our hearts. Oh, He will not abandon us now. His past dealings are the tokens of future promised grace and security and there is absolutely nothing wrong with walking securely in that; it would be wrong to not walk in such a way. It is God’s will that we rest confidently in Him, realising that affliction is the tool He fashions to bring His work in us, not just to completion, but to perfection.