Psalm 32:10 says that many are the woes of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the person who trusts in the LORD.  Is this said to brag for the believer?  Is this a way of taking the wicked and "rubbing their nose in it?"  (Nyah-nyah!  You have woes and we don't!) 

If you know my Theology, and by now I hope you do, then you know I am a realist and I engage in the real stuff of life and admit to hard truths and face them head on.  And so it seems to me that the difference between the wicked and the believer, as reflected in this verse, is not so much that one has woes and the other doesn't.  Instead, I hear this passage as saying we all have woes; we all live in the real world with its trials and pain and disappointments (as well as its joys); the difference is that the person who trusts in the LORD is surrounded by God's steadfast love and the wicked person is not.  That is perhaps the deepest of all woes and the one that we are spared from; a life apart from God and God's love.

It's not easy, I don't take it lightly and at times I'm guilty of having trouble trusting in God when things are going really bad.  But; I can have hope in the face of those times because I know that I'm surrounded by God's steadfast love.  I know God and that God is good and God is for us.  Without that, our existence would be hopeless.  That, indeed, would be the deepest woe!