The brain is remarkably small, but stress can make it even smaller. Recent research has revealed that cumulative stress can shrink the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for managing emotions, impulses, and social interactions. This shrinkage is linked to anxiety and depression, highlighting the toll that a lifetime of stress can take. But there’s good news—the brain’s plasticity allows it to heal through intentional practices like exercise, meditation, and meaningful relationships.
The psalmist in Psalm 119 understood this idea of growth and healing after facing stress and hardship: “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees” (v. 71). Affliction, though painful, became the psalmist’s teacher—taking us from being “astray” from God to choosing to “obey [His] word” (v. 67). The psalmist expresses gratitude for his bitter medicine and God’s goodness (v. 68). While he understood that affliction and suffering could diminish him, he trusted God to use those experiences to refine and restore him (v. 66).
Like our brains, our spirits are capable of being stretched. God uses this stretching to cause growth and renewal. Through Scripture, prayer, and a Spirit-inspired perspective, He can reverse the effects of our hardships. He can use our afflictions for our spiritual growth, transforming pain into purpose.
How has God helped you grow in faith through suffering? How have you embraced gratitude?
Loving God, thank You for teaching me through my trials.
Psalm 119 is an extended song/poem about the beauty of the law even in hard times. In today’s text (vv. 65-72), the psalmist uses a variety of terms to describe the law, including “word,” “commands,” “decrees,” “precepts,” and “law.” These ideas are intensely personal for him, for he speaks from his experiences of pain. He uses terms like “afflicted” (vv. 67, 71) and “smeared . . . with lies” (v. 69) to cry out to God‚ grateful for all he’d learned from those seasons of struggle. In spite of his afflictions and mistreatment, however, he concludes in verse 68, “You are good, and what you do is good.” In a broken world filled with hatred and pain, we too can rest in the never-failing goodness of God. He uses all things, even our trials, for our spiritual growth and to conform us to the image of His Son, Jesus.
