Losing Our Foothold - Psalm 73

                                  

Psalm 73 begins the third book in psalms. This book includes prayers for help, tells us of a God who helps his people and brings down the wicked. Psalm 73 contains a question that still get asked today by followers of Jesus, “why do the wicked so often have things so good while God’s people suffer?” Asaph begins by confessing that God is good to his people, but it can be hard to see that goodness when evil’s all around, and to make it worse, the wicked have it good while the psalmist struggles. Shouldn’t God take better care of his people, is the unspoken question here.

Jeremiah has the same compliant, Jeremiah 12:1–2, “You are always righteous, Lord, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease? You have planted them, and they have taken root; they grow and bear fruit. You are always on their lips but far from their hearts.” This is a question that comes up regularly in the time I’ve been a pastor, that those who don’t really believe in God and do horrid things do great while those who are faithful to God struggle to get by. It makes it hard for Asaph to trust God.

Asaph’s complains that the arrogant prosper, they don’t struggle at all, they’re happy and healthy, have no problems, no human ills. They’re violent, filled with sin, there’s no limit to the evil their imaginations can come up with, and they even threaten to oppress those who don’t give them what they want. It’s not fair! What frustrates Asaph even more is that the people love them, they turn to these wicked people and drink their water. I hear an echo forward to Jesus’ offer of living water to the woman at the well and how it fills with life, unlike the water from the wicked that leads people to doubt, or even mock God, “How would God know? Does the Most High know anything?” The name Asaph uses for the Lord here is El Elyon, God Most High, check out the Thanksgiving week devotional to reflect on how this name points to God as being superior in every way, but the people mock God.

Asaph finds himself jealous of the wicked. He wonders, why work so hard to keep his heart pure and himself innocent by living how God calls him to live in the Torah, the books of Moses where God lays out his expectations for his people. Asaph wonders why he should work so hard at living this way when he doesn’t seem to get anything out of it. This kind of faith is a business-like transaction: Asaph gives God his loyalty and worship, but then expects the Lord to bless him with a lovely wife, respectful and gifted children, success, and good health; otherwise, why bother? This is prosperity gospel thinking. Asaph only sees, “All day long I have been afflicted, and every morning brings new punishments. If I had spoken out like that, I would surely have betrayed your children.”

Envy, jealousy, and frustration leads Asaph to a place in his heart where he confesses, “my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold.” He’s not the only one this happens to; these feelings often fill us too and can lead us away from trusting God. Asaph finally decides to go to God’s place, his sanctuary to try to figure all this heart stuff, to address this envy and bitterness inside him, “When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.” Asaph begins to find some peace and understanding when he enters God’s house. It’s here that he’s reminded of who God is, of God’s long relationship of faithfulness to his people, the stories of how he has delivered his people time after time. But the stories of God’s deliverance of his people from their enemies also reminds Asaph of why God had to save his people so often, because of who they had become, just like the wicked around them, instead of being God’s people. Because Israel keeps choosing to be more like the nations, God allows the nations at certain times to conquer and oppress Israel so Israel can experience exactly what being like the nations is really like. God allows this oppression to happen in order to draw his people back to him again, to remind them of who he is and who they are: his people called to be his image to the nations instead of being like the nations. God reminds them that they are his chosen people and he’ll always be faithful to the covenants he’s made with them, even when they’ve failed to be faithful in return.

Asaph gets to a place where he understands why God holds off and allows the wicked to commit themselves to their ways and choices, “Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! They are like a dream when one awakes; when you arise, Lord, you despise them as fantasies.” God allows us to collect for ourselves as much as we can, but in the end, it’s nothing more than a fantasy and meaningless. Our worth doesn’t come from how much we have or have accomplished, it comes from who we are as a child of God and how we use what we’ve gathered. You can hoard it for yourself and selfishly only bless yourself, or you can recognize it as a gift from God to be used to bless others and build community. Jesus touches on this in his parable about the wealthy man who keeps building bigger barns to hold his wealth, but then suddenly dies in the night. What he gathered for himself ultimately doesn’t save him, he dies just like the beggar in the ditch or laneway.

Asaph knows the Lord and himself well enough to admit that “when my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.” He recognizes that bitterness and envy hurt our relationship with God; it impacts our generosity, compassion, and humility, causing our hearts to wither, creating doubt and anger towards God. We’re not nearly as spiritually strong as we think we are. We’re natural born sinners, we want what we want, no matter what God says. Our hearts are naturally drawn to sin rather than our creator. We’re not strong enough on our own, we need God, we need his Spirit, we need the forgiveness found in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and we need to be honest with ourselves. We often find ourselves surprised by our sin, instead we should realize that this is who we are. When you listen to writers like Paul, we’re regularly reminded that God made us weak so that we can learn humility, and just how much we need him.

We’re also set free from our sin and our envy by God’s grace. We’re also reminded regularly how much he loves us, and how Jesus is with us always to always lean on him. As Barbara Duguid reminds us in her book Extravagant Grace, “In the Bible, the strongest people are those who know their own weakness while the weakest people are those who are most impressed by their own strength.” Asaph comes to the realization, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.” He finds the peace that wipes away the envy and questions that had created so much struggle in his heart towards God.

Asaph realizes that his flesh and heart may fail, but God’s his strength. The Jewish writer, Chaim Bentorah gives us some insight into this verse. “The word “flesh” here is the word “she’ar” in the Hebrew which means flesh, but flesh in the sense of a near kinsman, or one you trust as someone of your own flesh, a close advisor… So, when Asaph says that “his flesh failed” he is likely saying that even those closest to him… have failed to explain why the unrighteous should prosper and the righteous do not. When even our closest friends or relatives can not advise us, we then look to our own hearts and let our hearts decide.  But Asaph is saying that even his own heart will fail, he can’t trust his own heart for a correct understanding or discernment.  So, who or what can he trust? Asaph says that God is his “strength.”  The word in Hebrew for “strength” here is “sur” which is the word for “rock.”  This is wisdom, that we turn to God for a solid foundation for our lives rather than the things of this world which come and go as God wills.

The reality is that it can be hard to understand why God allows some people, even those who are arrogant and even wicked succeed so much while we struggle. Sometimes we need to ask God for eyes to see his presence and his blessings he has given us, to ask the Holy Spirit for a spirit of trust, gratitude, and contentment, even as we ask God for our daily bread, as Jesus taught us to pray. This will give us a firm foothold through life as we build our lives on God our rock.