READ Psalm 71:19–24. 19 Your righteousness, God, reaches to the heavens, you who have done great things. Who is like you, God? 20 Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up. 21 You will increase my honor and comfort me once more. 22 I will praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, my God; I will sing praise to you with the lyre, Holy One of Israel. 23 My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you—I, whom you have delivered. 24 My tongue will tell of your righteous acts all day long, for those who wanted to harm me have been put to shame and confusion.
YOU WILL RESTORE MY LIFE. In the middle of this psalm is a phrase that goes by quickly but that should make us stop and think: “Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again” (verse 20). The psalmist trusts God’s sovereign wisdom and love, even when he has sent bitter trouble into his life. He knows that in the end everything that happens is for the ultimate purpose of restoring our life—by deepening the love, wisdom, and joy of our spiritual life and by eventually resurrecting our bodies in the new world, wiped clean of all death and darkness (Romans 8:18–25). Indeed, then, “everything is needful that he sends; nothing can be needful that he withholds.”64
Prayer: Lord, do not let advancing age increase either pride or worry in me. Instead let me grow in humility as I see the increasing number of sins from which you have forgiven me and from which you have protected me. And let me grow in patience as I see how patient you have been with me. Amen.