NEED SOME PERSPECTIVE?

Book Three

God Is My Strength and Portion Forever

A Psalm of Asaph.

1 Truly God is good to Israel,
    to those who are pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
    my steps had nearly slipped.
3 For I was envious of the arrogant
    when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

4 For they have no pangs until death;
    their bodies are fat and sleek.
5 They are not in trouble as others are;
    they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
    violence covers them as a garment.
7 Their eyes swell out through fatness;
    their hearts overflow with follies.
8 They scoff and speak with malice;
    loftily they threaten oppression.
9 They set their mouths against the heavens,
    and their tongue struts through the earth.
10 Therefore his people turn back to them,
    and find no fault in them.^{1

73:10
Probable reading; Hebrew the waters of a full cup are drained by them}
11 And they say, “How can God know?
    Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
12 Behold, these are the wicked;
    always at ease, they increase in riches.
13 All in vain have I kept my heart clean
    and washed my hands in innocence.
14 For all the day long I have been stricken
    and rebuked every morning.
15 If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
    I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

16 But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
17 until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.

18 Truly you set them in slippery places;
    you make them fall to ruin.
19 How they are destroyed in a moment,
    swept away utterly by terrors!
20 Like a dream when one awakes,
    O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
21 When my soul was embittered,
    when I was pricked in heart,
22 I was brutish and ignorant;
    I was like a beast toward you.

23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
    you hold my right hand.
24 You guide me with your counsel,
    and afterward you will receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
    And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength^{2

73:26
Hebrew rock} of my heart and my portion forever.

27 For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
    you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
28 But for me it is good to be near God;
    I have made the Lord God my refuge,
    that I may tell of all your works.

Footnotes

[1] 73:10 Probable reading; Hebrew the waters of a full cup are drained by them
[2] 73:26 Hebrew rock

There are times in life when everything that seems so sure gets pulled out from under us. Financial stability, good health, safety, and even people we love get stripped from us, and we’re left on the ground trying to pick up the pieces. It is tempting (and natural) when faced with this type of situation to question God’s goodness and our commitment to Him to look for some semblance of security.

This was definitely true for Asaph, the author of today’s psalm. In the middle of a crisis in his life, he looked at people who were far from God and saw nothing but prosperity, ease, and good health. And he envied them. He reviewed his life of faithfulness to God and concluded it was all in vain. The pull of the wicked’s prosperity coupled with his suffering almost caused him to lose his footing and slip away from God.

But Asaph backed away from the situation long enough to go be with the Lord: “[I]t troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God” (verses 16b-17a, NIV). As soon as he encountered God, he immediately gained perspective. He realized that prosperity, ease, and good health without God is a short-lived imitation—as when a desired object of apparent value turns out to be cheap plastic that breaks apart in your hand. He realized that placing ultimate value on anything (good or bad) other than God is futile. He realized that God is not a means to the end of circumstantial happiness but is the end unto Himself. “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.” (Verse 25, NIV) He gained perspective.

When we live in the perspective that God is the end, nothing can rob us of the strength and peace that comes from the reality that He is always with us, holding our hand in the midst of it all. And the beauty of it is that He can and will use any circumstance to shape and form us into what He created us to be: sons and daughters of God, “strong, radiant, wise, beautiful, and drenched in joy.” (C.S. Lewis, Man or Rabbit?)

1. When faced with difficult circumstances, have you ever been tempted to find stability and comfort apart from God? Even though we may find a measure of comfort in those pursuits, why are they ultimately futile?

2. Why do you think Asaph's perspective changed when he encountered God?

3. In what ways has God changed your perspective?

4. Spend some time today praying through frustrations or difficult circumstances and ask God to change your perspective. Call trusted friends and have them pray with you, too.