If there is one thing God’s people can rest in, it is that He is going to deal with them as a righteous judge. In fact, the preceding psalm says that “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of [God’s] throne…” (Psalm 89:14) He is always perfectly balanced in everything He does in our lives. He is a master at knowing how to maintain the perfect equilibrium in all His dealings with us.
Consider the great challenge the Holy Spirit has in managing the lives of individual believers. If He grants us too much prosperity, we tend to become spiritually complacent. Yet He also doesn’t want to see His children groveling in abject poverty either. If the Lord encourages us too much, we tend to become independent-minded; but if He chastens us too severely we can easily lapse into self-centered depression. If He gives us opportunities of great ministry, whereby He is able to use us mightily for His kingdom, we tend to become puffed up with pride; but if He doesn’t use us at all, we feel like our spiritual life is meaningless. In spite of the enormity of the challenge, the Lord has an uncanny ability to introduce the exact proper mixture of ingredients into our lives to bring about His great purpose for us as believers.
Another aspect of God’s balanced approach to our lives is that the greater a person is used in His kingdom, the greater that person’s sufferings will tend to be. Of course, there have been well-known ministers who seemed as though everything they touched turned to gold. While their ministries prosper and flourish, other men—better men—struggle along with seemingly little fruit to show for their efforts. Ah, but that’s looking on the outward, and man does not see as God sees. Many prosperous ministries make a big splash and accomplish little of eternal value, while some seemingly inconsequential ministries have the full attention of both angels and devils!
Be that as it may, when God is able to use a person to deeply impact the lives of others, I can assure you that much suffering has undergirded it all. How do I know this? Because it is the person who has traveled down the narrow path of adversity and death to the self-life who is most full of God. That being the case, the person who has suffered most can expect the most meaningful fruit to come forth from their lives.