Sufferings reveal whether He is or He isn’t. When I suffer, I either doubt His goodness or I trust in it. I think Him far off, indifferent toward me or I sense His nearness and compassion. And if I’m not careful, I can feel as though living for God is all in vain, that being pure in heart is futile because…what good does that do me now.
Asaph felt all of that. He tells us as much in Psalm 73. He was envious of unbelievers who were living the good life while he and other believers were “stricken all day long” (v. 14) by the taunts, blasphemies, and evil actions of wicked men (vv. 6-9).
How did he get out of that downward spiral into unbelief and flight from God? He did it through worship; He came into the “sanctuary of God” and meditated on biblical truth. Truth about the end of all unbelievers. And truth about God’s grace and mercy toward him, even while he was acting like a senseless beast in his doubt and unbelief.
He realized by faith what was always true: he was continually with God, God was holding onto him and guiding his life, and God would take him to glory afterward. The circumstances and people didn’t change. Asaph’s perspective did. It changed by worship – by focusing his heart’s eyes on God. That led to his repentance from unbelief and faith in the goodness of God.
So, he ends Psalm 73 by declaring that God is all that He has and that besides Him, he desires – he takes pleasure in, he is satisfied by – God alone. He further declares that God is the strength (lit. “rock”) of his heart and his portion (“share” or “allotment” in life) forever…that the nearness of God is his good…and that he has made God his refuge so that he can tell everyone about God’s works, including helping him out of this spiritual rut.
If your heart and your flesh were to fail tomorrow, would you say that you have nothing but God? Would you say that You desire Him alone? Could you say that His nearness is the highest good? Psalm 73 says that you would…if you took your heart before the Lord, confessed your sin of unbelief, and by even the smallest and weakest faith worshiped God as you considered who He is and what He has done for you.
And He has done wonders for us, hasn’t He? He gave us His Son who died, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to Himself, not only as our God but also as our Father (1 Pet 3:18). There’s nothing sweeter and more radically soul-satisfying than that.
