Daily Devotion (11. 11. 2026) – Gratitude in Affliction

Genuine praise can’t be manufactured. It comes from thanking God in both the sorrows and the joys.

Psalms 119:65-72

We typically express gratitude for God’s blessings, but what about thanking Him in the middle of something that doesn’t feel like a blessing at all? That’s hard to do, isn’t it? And yet the writer of Psalm 119 does exactly that, offering praise to God from the middle of genuine suffering.

What makes this possible isn’t denial or forced positivity. It’s a settled confidence in who God is. (See Ephesians 5:20.) When we trust that He is good and that His purposes run deeper than our present circumstances, we begin to find something unexpected in our trials—not just endurance but the kind of formation that only difficulty can produce (v. 71).

The psalmist doesn’t arrive at gratitude quickly or easily. He describes being afflicted and wandering but in the next breath says God is good and does good—even in the midst of affliction (vv. 67-68). That honest back-and-forth is itself a form of trust.

We don’t have to like what we’re going through, but we should bring it honestly to God and choose to place ourselves under His care. Gratitude in affliction isn’t a feeling we manufacture. It grows naturally as we, like the psalmist, learn that even in our hardest moments, God’s Word holds and His faithfulness never wavers.

Source: https://www.intouchaustralia.org