Hope Amidst Suffering
The phone rings at 2 AM. In that moment before you answer, you know your world is about to change forever. We've all faced moments like these - when suffering crashes into our lives without warning, when pain makes every certainty we once held suddenly feel paper-thin. These are the moments that test not just our faith, but our very understanding of who God is and how He works in our world.
I think of my sister Jaimie. Healthy and vibrant one day, gone the next, leaving behind two beautiful children and a void that seemed impossible to fill. In those early hours and days, when grief felt like a physical weight pressing down, every pat answer about faith felt hollow. Every well-meaning platitude about God’s plan seemed to mock the depth of our loss.
But it was in that darkness that I began to understand something profound about faith – something that saints and believers throughout history have discovered in their own moments of deepest trial. Take Athanasius, a great defender of truth in the early church. When told that “the whole world is against you,” he replied with unshakeable conviction: “Then Athanasius is against the world.”
His response wasn’t born from stubbornness or pride. It came from a deep understanding that true faith isn’t measured by circumstances or validated by popular opinion. It’s anchored in something – Someone – far more permanent than the shifting sands of our experiences.
Psalm 119:49-56 gives voice to this kind of faith. The psalmist isn’t writing from a place of comfortable theorizing about suffering. He’s writing from the trenches of real pain, real opposition, real darkness. And what he shows us isn’t just how to survive suffering, but how to find hope in the middle of it.
Our hope isn’t based on what we see but on what God has said. (49-50)
Hope that depends on circumstances isn’t hope. It’s just wishful thinking. It’s a gamble. If your hope is in people, then what happens when they fail you? If your hope is in your plans, then what happens when everything collapses? If your hope is in yourself, then what happens when you hit rock bottom?
The psalmist isn’t basing his hope on anything he can see. He isn’t waiting for his situation to improve before he trusts God. He says, “Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.” His confidence isn’t in how he feels, but it’s in what God has said.
Think of a child learning to swim. When they first enter deep water, everything in them wants to panic. Their circumstances, being surrounded by water over their head, tell them they're in danger. But if they trust their father's voice saying, “I've got you,” they can find peace even before their feet touch bottom. Their hope isn't in their ability to swim or in the water becoming shallow. Their hope is in their father's word. “I’m with you and will help you through this.”
But let’s be honest. When suffering comes, we panic. We forget. We know God’s promises, but they feel far away. Pain gets loud. Fear takes over. The enemy whispers lies, and suddenly we start believing that maybe God isn’t near. Maybe He doesn’t care. Maybe we’re on our own. That’s why the psalmist prays, “Remember your word.” Not because God forgets, but because we do.
The psalmist is doing what the people of God have always done in their darkest moments—he is holding on to what God has already spoken. Think about Joseph sitting in prison for years after being falsely accused. He had been given dreams of leadership, dreams of purpose, but his reality looked like abandonment. If he had based his hope on what he saw, he would have given up. But God had spoken, and that changed everything. So later, after all that, he would say,
“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” (Genesis 50:20)
Think about the Israelites standing at the Red Sea. Behind them was Pharaoh’s army. In front of them was a body of water too deep to cross. They couldn’t see a way out, and they panicked. But God had already spoken. He had already promised deliverance. They didn’t need to see a way. They needed to trust the One who had led them there. On the other side they sang these words,
“I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him.” (Exodus 15:1-2)
Think about David. He had been anointed as king, but he spent years running from Saul, hiding in caves, living like an outcast. If he had based his faith on what he saw, he would have quit. But God had already spoken, and that was enough. He would later be able to say,
“O Lord, in your strength the king rejoices, and in your salvation how greatly he exults! You have given him his heart’s desire and have not withheld the request of his lips. For you meet him with rich blessings; you set a crown of fine gold upon his head. He asked life of you; you gave it to him, length of days forever and ever. His glory is great through your salvation; splendor and majesty you bestow on him. For you make him most blessed forever; you make him glad with the joy of your presence. For the king trusts in the Lord, and through the steadfast love of the Most High he shall not be moved.” (Psalm 21:1-7)
These are people who lived through difficulty but also lived with hope. Hope doesn’t interpret God’s actions through the lens of suffering. It interprets suffering through the lens of God’s Word. Hope isn’t about seeing a way out. It’s about knowing that God is in it with you. It’s trusting that even when life is hard, God is still good. Even when you don’t feel it, His promises are still true.
That’s what the psalmist is clinging to here. He isn’t hoping in a specific outcome. He is hoping in God Himself. And that’s the kind of hope that’s solid. This is what Jesus showed us in the garden of Gethsemane. He knew the suffering that was coming, but He didn’t put His hope in circumstances changing. He said, “Not my will, but yours be done.” His hope wasn’t in escape. It was in the God the Father. And that’s where real hope is found. Not in a change of circumstances, but in a God who never changes.
Faithfulness welcomes opposition but never compromise. (51-53)
If you are serious about following Jesus, then you aren’t going to avoid opposition. This isn’t a possibility. It’s a guarantee.[1] The psalmist says, “The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law.” He isn’t just being ignored. He isn’t just being disagreed with. He’s being mocked and ridiculed and laughed at. But he refuses to turn away. He doesn’t water down God’s truth to make it easier for people to accept, and he doesn’t try to fit in by adjusting what he believes. He stands firm because he knows truth isn’t up for debate.
That’s where a lot of people struggle. We want to be faithful, but we also want to be liked. We want to stand for truth, but we don’t want to be labeled as narrow-minded or extreme or intolerant. We love Jesus, but we also love being accepted. And that’s where compromise begins. Instead of speaking up, we stay quiet. Instead of holding to God’s Word, we soften it. Instead of standing firm, we shift just enough to keep from making people uncomfortable. We shape our beliefs to fit the moment.
You see it everywhere. Christians who once stood for biblical truth start adjusting their views because culture moves in a different direction. People who once believed in the authority of Scripture start picking and choosing which parts to follow because they want to stay relevant. Even churches drift, shifting their teaching so they don’t lose favor with the world. It’s so subtle at first, but over time, they aren’t really standing on God’s Word anymore. They’re standing on whatever is easiest.
But the psalmist refuses to do that. He doesn’t measure truth by how well it’s received. He stands firm, knowing that truth doesn’t change just because people reject it. And he isn’t the first to experience this. Again, think about those throughout the Bible. Noah looked like a fool building an ark when there was no rain. Moses stood before Pharaoh demanding freedom for a nation of slaves. Daniel refused to stop praying even when it meant being thrown into a den of lions. They all faced opposition. They were all pressured to compromise. But they chose obedience over approval.
This is where the psalmist finds his strength. He says, “When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O Lord.” He’s able to stand firm because he remembers. He remembers how God has always been faithful. He remembers that God’s Word has never failed. He remembers that God’s truth has outlasted every human opinion, and it will remain long after His enemies are gone.
But this isn’t just about enduring opposition. Many of us can do that better than we can do this next part. This is also about being grieved when people reject truth. He says, “Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake your law.” He doesn’t just roll his eyes at the world and move on. He doesn’t get used to sin until it no longer bothers him. It stirs something in him. He sees people despising God’s commands, and it breaks his heart.
Does it break yours? Or have you gotten so used to compromise that it doesn’t even register anymore? When you see people walking away from truth, does it grieve you? Or have you just accepted that this is the way things are now? This world is changing. Culture is shifting. The approval of people will come and go. But God’s truth is eternal. Because of that, no matter what we face, we can face it with hope.
God’s Word is our song in the night. (54-56)
The psalmist isn’t just surviving suffering. He’s singing in it. He says, “Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning.” That’s not just poetic language. That’s reality. He’s saying, “God, when I had nothing else, I still had Your Word. When I felt like an outsider in this world, Your truth was the melody that kept me going.”
This reminds me of the account of Paul and Silas in Acts 16:20-25:
“20 And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, “These men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. 21 They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice.” 22 The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. 23 And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. 24 Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. 25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.”
So many of us wait to worship until life gets better. We withhold our praise until the suffering stops. We act like we’ll trust God when He gives us a reason to. But the psalmist is worshiping in the middle of it. He’s not waiting for deliverance to sing. He’s singing because even in the pain, God is still worthy.
I’ve witnessed this kind of hope firsthand in my own family’s journey. When my twin sister Jaimie passed away unexpectedly, leaving behind two young children, our family was shaken to the core. My mom just this week was featured in a local magazine, saying about losing her daughter, “I have a selfish mom’s heart. I want her here. But over the years, I’ve learned to trust God’s plan, even when it’s hard to understand.” This is exactly what the psalmist demonstrates - not a denial of pain, but a deep trust that transcends it. Like the psalmist who found songs in his suffering, our family discovered that genuine hope doesn’t mean the absence of grief. Instead, it means finding God’s faithfulness even amidst our pain. Here’s the perspective it gave my mom. She said, “The things of this world no longer matter to us. What matters is leaving a godly legacy and knowing where you will spend eternity. God entrusted us with the loss of our daughter, and I want my brokenness to show others the hope in Jesus and how He can carry you through any trial.” This is the kind of hope that the psalmist is describing.
He says, “I remember your name in the night, O Lord, and keep your law.” The night is when everything feels the heaviest. The distractions of the day are gone. The weight of reality sets in. The loneliness, the fear, the thoughts you try to push away all come rushing back. And the psalmist isn’t numbing himself. He isn’t running to temporary relief. He remembers God’s name in the night.
It’s easy to worship when life is good. It’s easy to read the Bible when you feel inspired. It’s easy to sing when your heart is light. But what about when life falls apart? What about when it hurts to lift your hands? What about when your heart feels too heavy to even speak? That’s when the truth of God’s Word has to be more than a theory. That’s when you have to know what you believe. That’s when you have to know whom you believe.
Job knew this. Sitting in the ashes of everything he lost, he said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21) The night had come, but he still lifted his eyes.
This is what the psalmist holds onto. “This blessing has fallen to me, that I have kept your precepts.” He doesn’t see obedience as a burden. He sees it as a blessing. He isn’t clinging to God’s Word because he has to. He’s clinging because he wants to. Because he knows that when everything else in life feels uncertain, this is the one thing that never fails.
So what about you? When life gets hard, what do you run to? When the darkness falls, what holds you up? When you’re standing at the edge of heartbreak, what do you cling to? The psalmist is saying that when life gets dark, God’s Word is still the song that never stops. The question is, will you sing it?
Christ is our ultimate hope.
At the heart of this passage is a longing for something unshakable, something that doesn’t crumble under pressure, something that holds firm when life falls apart. The psalmist clings to God’s Word because it is the only thing that lasts. People fail. Feelings shift. Circumstances change. But what God has spoken remains.
And yet, as much as the psalmist treasured the promises of God, he was still waiting. He was holding on to words that pointed forward to something greater. We stand on the other side of history. We don’t just have promises. We have a Person. We don’t just have words on a page. We have the Word made flesh.
The psalmist looked forward to a salvation that had not yet come. We look back to a Savior who has already come and who is coming again. Every longing in this passage finds its fulfillment in Jesus. This entire psalm is about clinging to God’s Word, but the most incredible thing is that God’s Word is not just a set of instructions or rules. It is a Person. The Gospel of John begins with these words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus is the embodiment of everything God has spoken. He is the fulfillment of every law, every promise, every hope. And He didn’t just give us words to cling to—He came to be with us in the suffering, just as He was with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace.
The psalmist faced mockery for standing on truth, but Jesus faced it first. He wasn’t just insulted. He was betrayed, abandoned, beaten, and nailed to a cross. The psalmist held onto hope in affliction, but Jesus walked into the deepest suffering, carrying the weight of our sin and shame. The psalmist sang in the night, but Jesus cried out from Psalm 22 in the deepest darkness, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus took on the full weight of separation so that we would never have to.
And that is why Christ is our ultimate hope. Because He didn’t stay in the grave. He rose. He conquered sin and death. He crushed the enemy that seeks to steal our hope. And because He lives, we can endure anything. Because He reigns, we can stand firm when the world stands against us. Because He is coming again, we can sing in the night, knowing that morning is coming.
This passage isn’t just about enduring hardship. It is about who holds us in it. It is about the only One who has already walked the road of suffering and came out victorious. It is about the One who never forgets His promises, the One who is faithful even when we are weak, the One who carries us when we can’t take another step.
So where is your hope? Is it in people? They will fail you. Is it in success? It will fade. Is it in yourself? You will break under the weight of it. But if your hope is in Jesus, then it is unshakable. Because He is unshakable.
This psalm ends with the psalmist still in the struggle, still waiting, still longing. But we don’t have to wait the same way. Because Christ has already come, and He is coming again. So stand firm. Cling to His Word. Lift your voice even in the darkness. And know that your hope is not in what you see. It is in the One who has already conquered the grave.
