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⁴⁹ Remember your word to your servant,
    in which you have made me hope.
⁵⁰ This is my comfort in my affliction,
    that your promise gives me life.
⁵¹ The insolent utterly deride me,
    but I do not turn away from your law.
⁵² When I think of your rules from of old,
    I take comfort, O Lord.
⁵³ Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked,
    who forsake your law.
⁵⁴ Your statutes have been my songs
    in the house of my sojourning.
⁵⁵ I remember your name in the night, O Lord,
    and keep your law.
⁵⁶ This blessing has fallen to me,
    that I have kept your precepts.

One of the most blissful weeks I have ever enjoyed was at Gladstone’s library - a private residential library in North Wales. I spent the week reading and studying in quiet in beautiful surroundings. 

Most of the time, our lives are not like that. We can begin to resent that as work and family and children and appointments and other responsibilities fill our time. Time to read the Bible has to be snatched in brief moments, and we often rush into church full of the problems of our lives. 

It is refreshing to see that the context for the Psalmist hearing the word of God is no different to ours. In fact it was worse. He is coming to God’s word when his life is hard. He’s not reading in the quietness of a library or the countryside. He is afflicted (vs 50), laughed at by those who don’t trust the Lord (vs 51). 

The Bible is a comfort to him as life is difficult. This is not because it provides a kind of escapism like watching a TV series. But it is because in it God has made promises about the future which he can hope in (vs 49). These remind him that there is more to life than what is going on around him. He takes comfort in God’s rules (vs 52), because although he is mocked for keeping them, this is how life is designed to be lived.

As we take comfort in God’s word, don’t be surprised if we find two seemingly competing emotions rise up within us. The first is anger (vs 53). The Psalmist is genuinely indignant that there are those who refuse to obey what God says. This is no “live and let live”, or relaxed thought that “you can’t expect unbelievers not to believe and obey”. If the God of all the earth, the one who created and sustained everyone has spoken then everyone should listen. He should be obeyed. It shows a rightful desire for his glory. It is an outworking of what we pray for when we pray “your kingdom come, your will be done”. 

This anger doesn’t lead him to do anything rash, or to hatred to other though. It leads him to prayer and a greater personal commitment to God and his word.

The second emotion is joy. God’s word will become our songs (vs 54). The Psalmist feels increasingly uncomfortable in the world he lives. So much so he describes his life as a “sojourning” - he is just travelling through. But he sings the word of God. We sing the Bible songs just like a foreign football team sings their national anthem as they travel abroad to play a match. 

As we face all these difficulties, and when they lead to us worry in the middle of the night (vs 53), God’s word brings us real comfort and joy. In it He assures us of his blessing as we stay hearing and obeying.