30 Days in the Psalmsಮಾದರಿ

Day #13: Psalm 73

Psalm 73 opens Book III of the Psalms with one of the most honest prayers in the Bible. The psalmist has captured the deep, gut-wrenching tension felt by someone who is deeply committed to the God of justice and righteousness, but who looks around him and sees the apparent triumph and prosperity of the wicked.

Three aspects of the prayer that burst from this struggling heart can help us when we find ourselves in similar moments. First, this man with a deeply troubled heart chooses to stay in the conversation! He doesn’t allow his confusion and pain to throw up a barrier between himself and God. In verse 17, he goes into the sanctuary of God. He deliberately enters God’s presence—and there he finds a reordered perspective on the things he’s been observing. The apparent triumph of evil, he discovers, is a fleeting occurrence; the greater reality is that God sets the wicked in slippery places and makes them fall to ruin, destroying them in a moment, like a dream that flees away upon waking (vv. 18–20). Because of this reordered understanding, the psalmist chooses to continue clinging to God, declaring: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (vv. 25–26, NRSV).

Second, this committed but struggling worshiper allows himself to lament, as part of his faithful engagement with God. Lament is when we say frankly to God, “This is not how it’s supposed to be! This situation that I’m facing does not line up with your promises!” The psalmist gives full expression to his dissatisfaction and confusion. He doesn’t hold back; instead, he tells God that he feels disillusioned, as if his own commitment to living faithfully and justly has been in vain, given the way the wicked seem to be flourishing (vv. 12–14). There is a raw honesty to his prayer.

Third, he is vulnerable and humble before the Spirit’s correction in his own life. After spending time in the Lord’s presence (v. 17) and having his perspective on the wicked corrected and reframed (vv. 18–20), he offers up his soul for examination. He looks back over his previous lament, and recognizes that at some point, his legitimate lament had morphed into foolish petulance and bitterness: “When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was stupid and ignorant; I was like a brute beast toward you” (vv. 21–22). After that brutally honest assessment of his error, he rests in the gracious forgiveness of God. “Nevertheless I am continually with you; you hold my right hand; you guide me with your counsel; you will receive me home” (vv. 23–24).

If you are troubled by the apparent triumph of the wicked, today is a good day to stay in the conversation with the Lord, to offer him honest, unvarnished lament, and to welcome his Spirit’s correction of your own heart.