"Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all." (Psa 34:19) The Bible tells us that righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach (Prov 14:34); after reading that portion of the scripture and many other wonderful ones about righteousness and godly living, it is easy to fall into the trap of presumption. It is easy to presume that the life of a righteous person is an easy ride and a merry-go-round. It is easy to presume that being a righteous person exempts one from the evil ordeals and afflictions of life. But that is not true. Being a righteous person or serving God does not exempt us from life problems; it rather assures us of deliverance from them. The promise is of defense and deliverance; not exemption. Understanding this is the first step to enjoying God's defense and deliverance. it is the secret to total reliance on God..
The word affliction refers to anything that causes pain. Anything that brings about pain, tears, heartbreak, sorrow, etc. The Hebrew word that is translated as affliction in this verse is ra-o-wt which can be used to mean ugly, evil, displeasure, mischief. The Bible is saying here that many are the evil things that come to destroy a righteous person; but the LORD delivereth him from them all. Because we are wrestling against spiritual powers who are constantly plotting mischiefs against us, God gives us the promise that He will defend us. The moment we declare our friendship with God and accepts Jesus as our personal Lord and Saviour; we have also declared our enmity with the devil. And the devil readies his weapons and arsenal to fight us, to afflict us and to pull us down. We become enemies with the devil; but some people ignorantly and foolishly take this new enmity for granted.
The Bible say that we have an adversary, satan (1 Pet 5:8) whom we should not be ignorant of his devices (2 Cor 2:11). The devil is constantly plotting evil against us and fighting us from the spiritual unseen realm. But the good news is that God is constantly defending us. The reason we don't see these troubles manifest all the time is not because the devil isn't fighting us. No, it is because God is defending us. Sometimes, God allows some of the problems to manifest and actually get to us so that we can still understand that there is a battle going on behind the scene.
If not for God we would have been utterly consumed (Lamen 3:22) because the afflictions are not few, but many. It could be a thousand afflictions a day, a million afflictions a day... nobody knows exactly for sure how much afflictions the devil plans to bring our way, but God delivers us from them all. Most of them never even gets noticed because He totally defends us and thwarts them before they even come around.
Our God is a great defender!