Psalm 73

 

We humans tend to measure things.

We look around us and compare stuff.

Sometimes we even compare our lives with other people's lives.

And at such times, we may be tempted to say, "It's not fair, Lord! I see these wicked people prospering and the godly are suffering!" 

Yep, we have talked about this before. 

"Why does God let evil, wicked people live long and seemingly happy lives? While His saints are suffering?"

We're going to see that Psalm 73 tackles this problem head-on. And this is not the musings of some guy sitting in an ivory tower, either. This psalm comes from the trenches of the battle. 
From painful experience.

Many of the psalms we've studied have been full of praise to God. They have taught us that we should be people of praise. But I love that the Psalms are very realistic. Very honest. They also teach us that such praise does not come without a struggle.

These online and on-television speakers who give out false views will not find their outlook in the Psalms. These songs don't say that if you are a believer, life will be trouble-free. They don't tell us that life will be sunshine and apple pie (or blueberry, or cherry, or whatever your preference may be). You won't necessarily FEEL like shouting "Praise the Lord!" all the time. 

In fact, in verse two, the author of this psalm admits that he almost slipped. He talks about being downright depressed. But he shows us how he worked through his problem (and yes, questioning God's fairness is a problem) of questioning God's fairness in the light of what he saw in his world.

Psalm 73 naturally divides into two halves: in the first fourteen verses, Asaph shows that there really are times when it seems life is not fair. He confirms that we will see the wicked prosper and the godly suffer - from our perspective. 

Then, in the second half, Asaph will show us his hard-fought victory. He learned that the way out of the pity party is to gain God's perspective on life. That's how he gets to verses 25-26:

Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.  My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.

Asaph is going to teach us that he saw both sides of the coin: the prosperity of the wicked is short, and their doom is eternal. The blessings of the godly people are eternal, but their trials are short.

We'll dig deeper next time . . . .