What Good Does It Do God if I Suffer? | Psalm 30

Written by Joel Davis 

I want to introduce you to a prayer of David in psalm 30 I bet very few of us have prayed before. Have you ever thought to ask God, “What good does it do You if I’m miserable?” That is admittedly a bit of a paraphrase, but you’re about to see how David appeals to the Father’s own glory when He pleads for deliverance. And the Lord demonstrates His faithfulness to David, even despite a pretty gutsy approach. 

I will exalt you, Lord, 
because you have lifted me up 
and have not allowed my enemies 
to triumph over me. 
Lord my God, 
I cried to you for help, and you healed me. 
Lord, you brought me up from Sheol; 
you spared me from among those 
going down to the Pit. 

Sing to the Lord, you his faithful ones, 
and praise his holy name. 
For his anger lasts only a moment, 
but his favor, a lifetime. 
Weeping may stay overnight, 
but there is joy in the morning.

 So many Christians go to the Psalms when they are suffering in search of hope and deliverance. There are so many powerful promises and expectant hope for God’s people. “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Put your hope in God, for I will again praise Him!” (Psalm 42:5) But we should just as frequently look to the Psalms for shouts of victory, for thanksgiving, and gratitude THAT our Father has not given us what we deserved, or has already delivered us out of terrible circumstances.  

The Psalms present to us the full range of human emotions. That is amazing because that gives us the freedom to acknowledge when we feel all those emotions ourselves and instructs us how we can bring those emotions to our Heavenly Father—everything from depressed to delighted! And delighted is exactly where we find King David in psalm 30. David is overjoyed to have been brought up from Sheol or The Pit. These are just ways of saying “where dead people go.”  

But verses 4 and 5 start to raise some questions for us, because it’s the anger of the Lord that is what David has been delivered from. It’s the judgment of God that put David at the edge of the Pit in the first place. I can think of countless folks that pray for deliverance, not believing they’ve really done anything wrong; who have been the genuine victims of senseless acts of hatred, violence, or neglect. But this psalm is so striking because David recognizes he got himself into this mess in the first place! It’s a sobering thought that sometimes there is suffering inflicted upon us and sometimes there is suffering we inflict on ourselves. Remember that in our discipleship recipe, there is both “the sins of others” that are committed against us and “personal sin” that we commit ourselves. And as we sit with the Spirit and reflect on a tough situation or the devastation that sin has caused in our lives, we can ask for wisdom and discernment to know where our fault may have been and where was the fault of others. But back to our psalm, do we get any additional information about what David’s sin was that he was under God’s judgment for?  

When I was secure, I said, 
“I will never be shaken.” 
Lord, when you showed your favor, 
you made me stand like a strong mountain; 
when you hid your face, I was terrified. 
Lord, I called to you; 
I sought favor from my Lord: 
“What gain is there in my death, 
if I go down to the Pit? 
Will the dust praise you? 
Will it proclaim your truth? 
Lord, listen and be gracious to me; 
Lord, be my helper.” 

Have you ever felt untouchable? Ever felt like you were on top of the world, and no one could ever knock you off? If you have, you know how easy it is to think that you got to that point in your own effort and abilities. We can call that independence, we can call it the old Protestant work ethic, but the Bible has another word for it. Pride. 
 
I have to testify to this; I have had a pretty killer week this week. I’ve had some wonderful times in the Word and in prayer, great quality time with my family, exciting things happening at Trexo, up early to work out… It’s one of those weeks that it feels like everything lined up perfectly. Now, how easy would it be to take credit for that? The quality time came from my own personal discipline in setting my phone aside and turning on Do Not Disturb. The great meetings at work were because I prepared well and knocked it out of the park. You get the idea. But the reality is that my Father blessed me with each and every one of those good gifts. Not only that, He did it because in His kindness, He chose to honor the time we spent together every morning. But most of all, He did it because He loved me, His son, and He wants an intimate relationship with me. 
 
The point is always intimacy.  

So, David finds himself outside of intimacy with God because in his pride, he chose to abandon dependence on God and try and go it alone. Which is to say, he chose to rebel. And this is the heart of what sin is, isn’t it? Rebellion against the will of a good and loving Father. Sin is much deeper and more intentional than a mistake. Maybe you’ve heard some of those montages of politicians on trial for something, or in a congressional hearing, and at the end of it all they can muster is, “Mistakes were made.” I can promise you one thing, that would not have flown with my parents when I got in trouble growing up! And it doesn’t fly with our Heavenly Father either. Sin is a willful act of rebellion against the good and loving intentions of a compassionate Father.  

But then David prays something that I think is as shocking as it is profound. He asks the Lord, “What gain is there in my death, if I go down to the Pit?” Let me paraphrase, what good does it do you if I die? What glory do you get if I’m sitting here miserable? 

I love this prayer from David. No doubt, there is something to be said about our attitude in the midst of suffering. We have some responsibility to think wisely and rightly about what we’re going through, and to some extent to weather the storm knowing that rescue is coming and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. But’s let’s examine the flip side of this coin for a second. 

John Piper famously says the Father is most glorified when His children are most satisfied in Him. The Father is seen for how magnificent He is when His children are set on fire by the love they experience from Him; when the abundant life of the Lord Jesus Christ is being lived out; when men and women filled up and fired up in the Holy Spirit and living in the fullness of their calling and identity they were always intended to live. THAT is the kind of witness and the life of LIFE that is being offered to us in the overflow!  

Think about how absurd the contrast is—men and women who call themselves Christians, perhaps genuinely are Christians, but live in a perpetual state of boredom and confusion about what it even means to follow Jesus. I think this is the kind of thing David might have equally asked, “What good is it to God if people are living this way?!”  

And so, this week, you may find yourself in a circumstance that’s outside of your control. You may, like David, have even gotten there as a result of your own actions or negligence. Never mind that. Ask your heavenly Father for deliverance, or at least to change your heart! Say to Him, “It doesn’t do you any good for me to be stuck in this rut!” Please, Lord, don’t let us go around moping this week like people who HAVEN’T been caught up into a personal, intimate relationship with the creator of the universe and the lover of our souls! It gives the Father no joy and no glory when this is the case for us. And when He answers you this week, you’ll be able to sign these same words that David did to close out psalm 30: 

You turned my lament into dancing; 
you removed my sackcloth 
and clothed me with gladness, 
so that I can sing to you and not be silent.
Lord my God, I will praise you forever!