Psalm 73
If I could write with the reflection and critique of the psalmist in Psalm 73, I would be OK with that.
This passage has been one of those stones I turn over ever since I read it last week. I can't get it out of my head. It begins:
Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. 2But 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.
4For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek. 5They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
As much as I work to be pure in heart and faithful to God's call on my life, the difficulty of my current financial situation, and the assumed comfort of wealth often does make me envious. I would like to be able to purchase a lot of things to medicate my problems, I just can't afford to. But that desire is there, and it troubles me how quickly enchantment with worldly things can slip in. But the psalmist continues:
6Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment. 7Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies. 8They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression. 9They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth. 10Therefore his people turn back to them, and find no fault in them. 11And they say, "How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?" 12Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches.
Just wow. I can't get over verse 6. PRIDE is their necklace and VIOLENCE covers them as a garment. Wow. If ever there was an indictment of riches and wealth it is this. The supposed comfort and alluring power of wealth and riches leads to pride and violence, and this pride and violence is what one adorns one's self with.
13All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. 14For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning. 15If I had said, "I will speak thus," I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
16But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, 17until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.
This is how it feels. That my strivings for a life not lived in bondage to the violence and pride and dominance of our society is all in vain because I still feel pain and still struggle to make ends meet and still feel stricken and rebuked.
18Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin. 19How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors! 20Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. 21When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, 22I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you.
23Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. 24You 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 of my heart and my portion forever.
27For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. 28But 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.
The Psalmist is radically transformed from desiring worldly riches and an enchantment with the comfort of the world to a life of discipleships and thirsting after God. And verse 26... "My flesh and my heart may fail but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." What a verse. In the face of the temptations of this world, God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For what else can be sustaining to my Spirit in the valley of Empire? I'm thankful for those loved one's who remind me of God's faithfulness and the nourishment God provides against that of this world's.