Affliction often leaves us asking what we should do to fix, change, escape, or understand our circumstances. Psalm 119:73–80 directs us first toward someone to trust. The psalmist remembers that he is the carefully fashioned work of God’s hands. Because the Creator who made him also governs and holds him, he asks for understanding that will help him obey rather than demanding a complete explanation.

The psalmist also trusts God’s heart. He knows that God’s judgments are righteous and that even his affliction is governed by divine faithfulness. His hope can therefore encourage other believers who are watching him endure. Finally, he seeks God’s help through five urgent prayers—for comfort, compassion, justice, usefulness to God’s people, and a blameless heart. God’s help does not always remove the trial; sometimes He sustains and sanctifies His people in it. The psalmist’s deepest concern is therefore not merely getting through the trial, but becoming faithful through it.

Trusting God • Suffering • Providence • Prayer • God’s Faithfulness • Comfort • Mercy • Sanctification • Christian Community • Slander • Perseverance • God’s Word

• What should I do when I cannot understand what God is doing?

• What does it mean that God made and fashioned me?

• How does God’s work as Creator help me trust His providence?

• Should I expect God to explain every painful circumstance?

• What does Psalm 119:75 mean when it says, “In faithfulness you have afflicted me”?

• Can my response to suffering strengthen other Christians?

• How should I pray when God does not remove a trial?

• How should Christians respond when others lie about them?

• What is more important than simply getting through a hardship?

• How can I guard my heart from bitterness during suffering?

• What circumstance are you currently trying to fix, escape, or fully explain?

• Do your prayers ask only for an explanation, or also for understanding that leads to faithful obedience?

• Which truth about God’s character do you most need to remember in this season?

• What are people around you seeing in the way you respond to hardship?

• Could God use your present or past suffering to encourage another believer?

• When you are mistreated, what do you rehearse: another person’s words or God’s Word?

• Which of the psalmist’s five prayers do you most need to pray today?

• Who are you becoming through this trial?

The Path of Trusting God Sermon Summary and Reflection Questions

What Should I Pray When Life Hurts?

Is God Still Good When Life Hurts?

Every Day We Preach Ourselves Two Sermons

Related Sermons

• Unlimited Comfort — 2 Corinthians 1:3–4. A close companion to the sermon’s themes of receiving God’s comfort and allowing suffering to serve other believers.

• Providence and the Children of God — Romans 8:28. Develops the truth that every part of a believer’s life remains under God’s purposeful providence.

• When God Is Silent — Job 23:8–17. Speaks to trusting God when His hand cannot be traced and His purposes remain hidden.