His feet were hurt with fetters. His neck was put in a collar of iron, until what he had said came to pass. The word of the Lord tested him.
– Psalm 105:18–19
These verses are talking about Joseph. The psalm recounts God’s work among his people in history, God’s goodness and sustenance and provision for them. And in Verse 16, he talks about how Joseph was sold as a slave. This leads to Verse 18, where Joseph is put in prison. And if you know the story from Genesis, he was unjustly put in prison.
Psalm 105:18–19 shows us that trials are tests for our faith.
This story has actually come up multiple times and conversations I’ve been having in recent days with people who are walking through trials and challenges in the world. And Joseph’s story of years in prison, it’s so interesting. In our Bible, it only takes a matter of seconds to turn the page from Joseph being put in prison to Joseph being let out of prison. But it wasn’t a matter of seconds for Joseph. It was year after year after year after year of being in prison unjustly, not knowing what was going to happen.
And it’s such a reminder that suffering can last in our lives, in this fallen world, for a long time. Joseph surely was crying out to God during all that time and staying in prison. And Verse 19 says, “The word of the Lord was testing him.” I don’t understand how all of this works in God’s wise sovereign design. But we see this picture all over Scripture. And spelled out in the New Testament how trials are tests of our faith. We see story after story in the Bible of men and women who made it through tests of their faith and trials in their lives and came through on the other side with deeper faith. Exactly what James 1 and 1 Peter 1 describe as a purified faith.
So when I read Psalm 105:18–19, I just pray that God would refine and purify my life and my faith through testing. And help me to come through trials that challenge my faith, to come through those as gold. And I just want to pray this over each of us. That God would help us to know him more and trust him more on the other side of trials than we do before them.
Psalm 105:18–19 reminds us God is with us in trials and suffering.
Oh God, we praise you for your promises in your Word, that you are with us on hard days. That you are with us in trials, and that you have good purposes for us in them. James 1, You tell us to count it joy when we meet trials, tests of various kinds. Because we know that the testing of our faith produces steadfastness. So that we might be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. So God, I just pray this over my life and over every single person listening. Especially those who are going through tests and our faith right now.
God, please produce steadfastness in us. Help us to be faithful as we trust in Your faithfulness to us when we don’t understand what’s happening… When our faith is challenged. When we don’t see why this is going on or when this will end. God help us trust in you. Help us to trust in you. And we pray that you would purify, that you would refine our faith so that we would be perfect and complete, not lacking anything, just like James 1 says, as 1 Peter 1 says, as we go through trials, grieved by various trials, that the tested genuineness of our faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it’s tested by fire, may be found in result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus. God, we want to be faithful through trials. Help us we pray.
This verse points to Jesus as the author and perfecter of our faith.
I pray just especially for those who are barely holding onto faith right now in different ways. Uphold them with your righteous right hand and help them, help us, to endure through trials. And Jesus, we praise you as the author and perfecter of our faith who Hebrews 12, for the joy set before you endured the cross, scorning in shame, and sat down the right hand of the throne of God. Help us to fix our eyes on you.
And God, we pray that you help us to lead others to you through trials. God may our faith in you in the middle of trials be a picture of the hope and the joy and the peace that nothing in this world can take away from us, that we have in you. Help us to point others to your goodness and your grace in the middle of trials we walk through.
Prayer for the Akhvakh People
And God, we pray for people who walk through suffering in this world and don’t have the hope and the joy and the peace, the life, that are found in you. Jesus, please help us to spread the gospel to people around us, to people around the world, God. For the Akhvakh people of Russia, for this small people group where there are relatively few, if any, followers of Jesus, God, please cause the gospel, the good news of your grace and your hope in this weary, fallen world to the Akhvakh people, for your glory.
And God, even in that, I pray, we pray, for people who are spreading the gospel to unreached people and are experiencing trials and challenges and tests in their faith as they do, please uphold and sustain them for the spread of the gospel through them. We pray all this according to your Word in Psalm 105:18–19. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
