571_Anchored in His mercy, sustained by His Word (Psalm 119:153-160) Psalm 119:153-160 Look on my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law. 154 Plead my cause and redeem me; give me life according to your promise! 155 Salvation is far from the wicked, for they do not seek your statutes. 156 Great is your mercy, O Lord; give me life according to your rules. 157 Many are my persecutors and my adversaries, but I do not swerve from your testimonies. 158 I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands. 159 Consider how I love your precepts! Give me life, O Lord, according to your steadfast love. 160 The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever. There is a story told about a young boy who accidentally broke a window while playing outside. Terrified of his father’s reaction, he hid in the backyard, rehearsing excuses, bracing for anger. When his father finally found him, the boy burst into tears and confessed everything. He expected punishment, but instead his father knelt down, embraced him, and said, “I’m glad you told me the truth. Let’s fix this together.” What overwhelmed the child was not the cost of repairing a window, but the unexpected tenderness of mercy. Years later, he said that moment shaped how he came to understand the heart of God. Mercy has a way of disarming us. It reaches us in places where strength fails, where excuses collapse, and where fear gives way to hope. Mercy meets us where we really are, not where we pretend to be. And that is exactly what we witness in Psalm 119:153–160. This portion of the psalm reveals a man who has come to the end of himself—not in despair, but in dependence. Surrounded by enemies, pressed by afflictions, and pursued by adversaries, the psalmist does not react with retaliation or self-reliance. Instead, he turns again—deliberately, humbly, honestly—to the mercy of God. He opens with a plea that is as simple as it is sincere: “Look on my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law.” The psalmist is not presenting a legal argument; he is presenting a heart shaped by Scripture. He asks God to look at his affliction—a request not just for observation, but for intervention. What gives him the courage to ask this? It is his steady confidence that he has anchored his life in the Word of God. Throughout Psalm 119, his attitude toward affliction is remarkably consistent. He never treats suffering as an accident, nor as something merely inflicted by people. He sees it through the lens of God’s sovereignty. Earlier he declares, “I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.” Those are astonishing words. The psalmist does not see affliction as a contradiction of God’s goodness, but as an expression of His faithfulness. He recognizes that God uses pain as a tool in His hand—not to crush, but to correct; not to destroy, but to deepen. He even speaks
