The Soul’s Song.

Singing when Life doesn’t seem Fair!

Psalm 73

A psalm of Asaph.

1 Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.

2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold.

3 For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

4 They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong.

5 They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills.

6 Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence.

7 From their callous hearts comes iniquity; the evil conceits of their minds know no limits.

8 They scoff, and speak with malice; in their arrogance they threaten oppression.

9 Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.

10 Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance.

11 They say, “How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?”

12 This is what the wicked are like—always carefree, they increase in wealth.

13 Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence.

14 All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning.

15 If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed your children.

16 When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me

17 till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.

18 Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin.

19 How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors!

20 As a dream when one awakes, so when you arise, O Lord, you will despise them as fantasies.

21 When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered,

22 I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.

23 Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.

24 You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.

25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

27 Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.

28 But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.

This Psalm is what may be described as an imprecatory Psalm, a Psalm which demonstrates righteous indignation. A calling down of a curse of vengeance, revenge and wrath.

There are at least 18 such Psalms, containing 368 verses of which only about 75 can be called 'imprecation'.

These Psalms also reveal God's settled opposition to sin.

How can we justify the Imprecatory Psalms in view of the New Testament concept of love and meekness?

These Psalms contain the longing of the servant of God for a vindication of God's righteousness. When the wicked prosper and the servant of God suffers. It is only right that the lover of God should desire a reversal that the right might be apparent and the wrong punished.

And this is a theme found here in Psalm 73 and throughtout the Psalms, Asaph wrote as He was primarily concerned for God's glory to be made manifest to all the nations who scorned Israel: "Rise up, O God, judge the earth, for all the nations are your inheritance"(Ps 82:8). “Cover their faces with shame so that men will seek your name, O LORD. May they ever be ashamed and dismayed; may they perish in disgrace. Let them know that you whose name is the LORD--that you alone are the Most High over all the earth"(83:16-18).

Who was Asaph?:

Asaph was a contemporary of David and he was appointed by him to minister before the Lord as a chief-musician in the worship of the tabernacle and a leader of choral worship: "He appointed some of the Levites to minister before the ark of the LORD, to make petition, to give thanks, and to praise the LORD, the God of Israel: Asaph was the chief, Zechariah second, then Jeiel, Shemiramoth, Jehiel, Mattithiah, Eliab, Benaiah, Obed-Edom and Jeiel. They were to play the lyres and harps, Asaph was to sound the cymbals, and Benaiah and Jahaziel the priests were to blow the trumpets regularly before the ark of the covenant of God. That day David first committed to Asaph and his associates this psalm of thanks to the LORD: Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice. Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always. Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgements he pronounced, O descendants of Israel his servant, O sons of Jacob, his chosen ones. He is the LORD our God; his judgements are in all the earth. He remembers his covenant for ever, the word he commanded, for a thousand generations, the covenant he made with Abraham, the oath he swore to Isaac. He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Israel as an everlasting covenant:(1 Chron 16v4-17).

Asaph wrote 12 Psalms(c/f Ps 50;73-83) and it is obvious from what we know about him that he was a very Godly man. Hezekiah calls him a 'seer'(2 Chron 29v30;Ps 50) but it is also clear that he was a man who doubted and suffered much vexation in spirit (see also Ps 74:1,2,8; Psa 79:5-10;Psa 80:3-7,14-19).

In every sense of the word Asaph was a godly man, convinced of his right standing with God; loving God; serving Him and assured of His security in Him and yet if we want evidence that good men can fall into spiritual darkness and dryness of soul it is here before us here! Even good, godly people question and doubt the goodness of God and the wisdom of God in the face of suffering and injustice!

People in all walks of life are searching for a kind of Utopia.

Collins Dictionary defines Utopia as “an imaginary situation…one in which society is perfect and everyone is happy, but which you feel is not possible.”

Though it is “imaginary” situation and impossible, we still fondly imagine that we can somehow attain it UNTIL our dream partnership ends when one partner isn't satisfied due to the fact that their Spouse has not delivered on the happiness and bliss they thought was guaranteed with the signing of the marriage licence.

The old job is left behind as we reach out to that new job and the untold satisfaction, recongition and not too mention untold riches becomes the new hope for reaching the yet elusive Utopian lifestyle.

Our grown up children break free from the restraining shackles of home to discover the heady hills of Utiopia land where every desire and pleasure can be satisfied without consequence to health, mental wellbeing and the meagure savings they have for a rainy day!

Even we Christians can fall foul of this Utopian fantasy - We can grow closer to the Lord; find more intimacy in prayer; more joy in worship if we leave our current Church behind and head off to thaat better church down the road where there are no problems and everyone is so much nicer and they will agree with me on any and every subject, and I will be forever healthy, happy, wealthy, and successful, just as God wants!

The search for Utopia however is destined for failure this side of Heaven. Paul, addresses this in Romans 8 when he tells us that our Present Suffering will eventually give way to our Future Glory, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.”(Rom 8:18-23).

The Utopian will forever be hoping for a better future, there longing heart repeating the phrase, ”If only..., I can” but the reality is in this world, God will frustrate those dreams of the best life to prevent us seeking our Heaven here on this sin-cursed earth.

We need that Biblical perspective of Paul, whenever we seek Utopia here on earth!

When life doesn’t seem wair, we can end up in…

I. DARKNESS (vs1-14).

And talking of perspective, let me introduce you to Asaph. He too had a wobble in faith and found himself looking for a kind of Utopia.

Asaph knew the goodness and mercy of God but he was perplexed by what seemed to be contradictions in the order of his universe.

He begins well - Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart”(v1). He is outlining here a general truth -a theological proposition that beleives that God cannot act unjustly or unkindly towards His people.

But don’t be fooled! Asaph has got to the point of speaking words that do not bring him any comfort. Indeed he doubts the truth of these words - “But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold.”(v2).

And this was not down to his own moral failure or personal rebellion against God. No, the reason for his loss of confidence in the goodness of God was this - “For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills. Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. From their callous hearts comes iniquity; the evil conceits of their minds know no limits. They scoff, and speak with malice; in their arrogance they threaten oppression. Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth. Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance. They say, “How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?” This is what the wicked are like—always carefree, they increase in wealth. Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning.”(vs 3-14).

Asaph’s crisis of faith in the goodness of God, arose understandably with what he say all around him in the world of men - the ungodly are prospering and increasing in health and happiness, while the godly, those like himself are suffering and struggling inspite of his having struggled to remain faithful to God - “Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence.”(v13).

“Faith” the Bible says in Hebrews 11:1, “is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” and according to Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:14-18 “With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence…Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

Asaph has lost sight of God. He has stopped fixing his eyes on what is unseen and is looking at things from an earthly and temporal perspective.

And this loss of perspective can be easily demonstrated - he beleived that the wicked seem to get away with their wickedness and even boast about it which will lead them to false conclusions. Dionysus the Younger, an ancient tyrant of Sicily, plundered the temple of Syracuse, sailed home safely with his plunder and then declared, “Do you not see how the gods favour those who commit sacrilege?” Now, that’s one possible interpretation but it is based on the belief that what God permits, He also wills and this is where we can fall into error.

Just because God is not immediately punishing the wickedness of the wicked does not mean that He approves of it or will ultimately not call them to account for it! This is the Psalmist’s categorical error!

How easy it is for us to fall into this trap! Where our earthly mindset can cloud our minds and dampen our faith, leading us to question the goodness of God.

And when things go wrong in our lives and we are put through the mill of pain and suffering and loss we must confess that it is difficult to sing songs like: “God is good all the time, put a song of praise in this heart of mind” because in fact sometimes we can;t praise, we just groan!

Sometimes our difficult circumstances or those of others that we care about, cause us to lose our grip on God and lose confidence in His goodness!

And the impact can be devestation - doubt; depression; anxiety and fear; bitterness and frustration; envy and anger; a need for God to reward Him and his righteous tribe whilst at the same time, poruing out His righteous anger upon the wicked - it’s all here in Asaph, in this imprecatory Psalm - and he has had enough! He wants revenge.

He wants God to put right what he believes to be wrong! Like the Sons of Thunder he wants to call down fire upon the wicked so that his pursuit of holiness and desire to honour God may not be seen to be in vain!

Sometimes we like to think of doubt as somehow an intellectually admorable and desirable thing BUT is is a condition of the mind and a disease of the heart that we need to deal with and seek God for honestly and with urgency for if we don’t we might slip and lose our foothold(v2).

The Psalmist was almost at the point of no return; of slipping away into a precipice to disastrous consequence, which is why the wroter to the Hebrews says: “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.”(Heb 3:12).

The problem is not the doubting - after all it give us thois incredible Psalm - no, the issue is, do you resolve to beleive in spite of the doubts. This is what Jesus counselled Thomas to do! Thomas: “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.””(John 20:27). It was only then that the “peace” Jesus offered could be with him; only when he fell on his kness and cried out “My Lord, and my God!”

Jesus was not rebuking Thomas for asking the questions and seeking confirmation, hew as encouraging him to bring His doubts to God to have his heart and mind settled! It’s like Philip in response to Nathaniel’s question and doubts about the origin and identity of the Messiah, the answer is “come and see”(John 1).

And as Anselm of Canterbury said: “For I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe-that unless I believe I shall not understand.”

C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity remarked: “Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods… That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods ‘where they get off’, you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist (p. 140-141).” 

Lewis’ point here is that faith, in the sense of sticking to a belief against the internal opposition of doubt is not unique to a Christian or a religious beleiver in general. Everyone does it at some point, even sceptics and atheists doubt their beliefs; ideas and values

We do not live in an era of history that values doubt over faith and so to hold to a faith means you will perhaps be labeled as closed-minded and bigoted but the reality is that everyone has faith in something.

C S Lewis notes in his book Mere Christianity, "Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable." This is so important to realise. Walking away from God won’t release you from doubt as you still exist exist in some kind of set beliefs which you can’t escape, even if you believe that the Universe has no ultimate meaning or purpose or that there is no such thing as absolute values and that death ultimately will end our existence, there is no more proof that this is true than the opposite point of view and those beliefs will have points of friction that will give rise to doubts and unanswered questions such as what if the Universe really was created; what if there reallyis meaning and purpose in lfie and whta if death does not end human existence. What they for my soul?

Tim Keller quotes Michael Polanyi’s essay “The Critique of Doubt” where “Polanyi argues that doubt and belief are ultimately “equivalent.” Why? “The doubting of any explicit statement,” he writes, “denies [one] belief . . . in favor of other beliefs which are not doubted for the time being…So, for example, you cannot say, ‘No one can know enough to be certain about God and religion,’ without assuming at that moment that you know enough about the nature of religious knowledge to be certain about that.”

C.S. Lewis himself faced up to his dounts broiuhgt on by the ancient dilemma of how can a good God permit suffering:

He wrote about it in his book, The Problem of Pain, which was a rational theodicy, but then his wife Helen Joy Davidman, suffered so much whilst she struggled and then died of cancer and he wrote, A Grief Observed a raw and personal testimoy to his sense of loss, when he cried out: “Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be—or so it feels—welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows.”

Lewis explains his feelings very honestly: “Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not “So there’s no God after all,” but “So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.”

But Lewis eventually came through his rawness of grief saying, “Feelings, and feelings, and feelings. Let me try thinking instead. From the rational point of view, what new factor has H.’s death introduced into the problem of the universe? What grounds has it given me for doubting all that I believe? I knew already that these things, and worse, happened daily. I would have said that I had taken them into account. I had been warned—I had warned myself—not to reckon on worldly happiness. We were even promised sufferings. They were part of the programme. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ and I accepted it. I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not in imagination.”

Madeleine L’Engle confessed deriving so much benefit from Lewis’ struggles with doubt in this way: “I am grateful, too, to Lewis for having the courage to yell, to doubt, to kick at God with angry violence. This is a part of healthy grief not often encouraged. It is helpful indeed that C. S. Lewis, who has been such a successful apologist for Christianity, should have the courage to admit doubt about what he has so superbly proclaimed. It gives us permission to admit our own doubts, our own angers and anguishes, and to know that they are part of the soul’s growth.”

When such a giant of faith doubts, he makes his doubt work for him, He integrates it into his faith, and the uncertainty about God and the future deepens his faith over time. This sjould encourage us i the darkness to await the enligtenment that will see us through!

When life doesn’t seem fair, we need…

II. ENLIGHTENMENT (vs 15-20).

C.H Spurgeon once said: "Errors of heart and head soon affect the conduct."

And so in verse 15, the Psalmist exercises discretion: “If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed your children.” Sometimes it is wise to keep our doubts and perplexities to ourselves lest we, by our words, sow seeds of doubt into someone else.

“It may have been true, as he says, that his feet “had almost slipped.” But they had not actually slipped, or at least they had not slipped so far as to make him forget his responsibilities as a leader of God’s people.”(James Montgomery Boice).

Indeed, as we see in in verses 16-17, Asaph encounters God and comes to his senses! - “When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.” To spend time in doubt, always questioning Divine Providence is not good for the soul. It becomes oppressive to the mind and spirit and it leads Asaph to “the sanctuary of God.”

“in the sanctuary Asaph came to see everything from God’s perspective rather than from his own limited and sinful worldview. That is, he came to see the lives of the wicked and also his own life from the perspective of eternity. He experienced a paradigm shift.”(Montgomery Boice).

We must at some point stop our search and we do so as we enter “the sanctaury of God” and are enligntened by the Holy Spirit, so that “the eyes of our hearts” are openend(see Eph 1:18).

Only then can we understand and graps the holy mystery of God’s proivdence; of His ways among men as he patiently waiths, loning that people would see sense and respond to his call to turn to Him in repentance - Isaiah 55:7 “Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.”

It is only when we come unto the presence of God that we are then able to understand that what we thought was disorder and chaos; what we perceived to be injustice and unfairness is all taken into account by a God who does all things according to His own wise decrees.

“Worship… put[s] God at the center of our vision.… It is vitally important because it is only when God is at the centre of our vision that we see things as they really are.”(Roy Clements)

It’s all about perspective - about taking the long view!

As Jesus said in Mark 8:34-38: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

When we think of the ultimate outcome of the ungodly life, temporal hardsip and suffering is nothing in comparrison for far from being on the edge of Utopia, the wicked are on the slippery precipice of a deep pit - “Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! As a dream when one awakes, so when you arise, O Lord, you will despise them as fantasies.”(vs 18-20). All of their great achievements and their wondersful acquisitions are as nothing - they disappear “as a dream when one awakes” - here today and gone tomorrow!

Believer, the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence. God is patient and forbearing, and in His grace he allows injustice; unfairness; pain and suffering but wrong shall be righted and ultimately the wicked shall be “cast down to ruin” - “Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you”(v27) - whilst the righteous shall have their reward.

When life doesn’t seem fair, we need to express…

III. CONFESSION (vs 21-22)

Asaph has come to his senses, having a new awareness of the destiny of the wicked which is quickly followed by a new awareness of Himself:

and he immediatey repents of his unworthy thoughts of God - “When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.”(vs 21-22).

Perhaps we have been here? We need to confess our sin of having set ourselves up as a judge of God.

Perhaps the best Biblical example of suffering is Job - we talk of his patience in suffering but don’t miss his role as a prosecution lawyer intent on calling God to account for that suffering, which he considered unjust and indefensible!

In Job chapters 9-10, he contends with God in what amounts to a lawsuit. In chapter 9:33-10:3 he conplains, “If only there were someone to arbitrate between us, to lay his hand upon us both, someone to remove God’s rod from me, so that his terror would frighten me no more. Then I would speak up without fear of him, but as it now stands with me, I cannot. “I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul. I will say to God: Do not condemn me, but tell me what charges you have against me.

This God, whom Job acknowledges is responsible for putting the star constellations in their place - “He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.”(9:9) and does great things that are past finding out(9:10) cannot be called to account but Job was later to learn to apply these great truths to his own situation rather than tormenting himself be demanding a full explanation of what God was doing but let’’s forgive him this, for as the Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi wrote: "Imagine how a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often easily loses himself" (Survival in Auschwitz, 1958).

In his anguish and confusion, Job begins to consider some disturbing notions about God, which in summary amount to this:

- Would God ever treat Job fairly? He doubted it (Job 9:14-31).

- Does God mock the innocent? Job thought so - 'If it is not he, then who is it?' (Job 9:21-24).

These are hard words, but they are questions not judgments; they are not positions of adopted certainy but expressions of bewilderment; the honest machinations of the heart, which is why he asks for someone strong enough to take up his cause with God(Job 9:32-35).

But in chapter 10 Job decided to plead his own cause and direct all his words to God. How could God who created him with such obvious care want to destroy him and that without any formal charges?

Job wanted to know what he did that was wrong. No doubt, he had been examining himself for months and remembering that he had tried so hard to please God in every detail—to the point God said he was blameless.

Considering what he endured, the wonder of all of Job's rhetoric is that he managed to stay so sane. (see Job 10:17, The Nelson Study Bible notes: "The phrase you renew your witnesses against me is a legal metaphor that may refer to each new aspect of Job's illness. In the equivalent war metaphor, the Lord was sending changes or troop reinforcements against him." This could even refer to Job's friends. Perhaps Job viewed them as sent by God to condemn him further).

Job ends by asking God to leave him alone in the few days he thinks he has left before he dies. He equates death here with utter darkness - “the land of gloom and deep shadow” (Job 10:20-22).

Its so devestating, so depressing BUT its not the end of the story - Job finally gets his wish to confront God and he is blown away! In chapter 38, it says: “Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm. He said: “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.”

Question after question is put to Job - was he there when earth was created? Does he pretend to know how everything is put together and works so harmoniously in the universe? “Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?”(32:33) - “Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him.”(42:2)

God is not pulling rank on Job here! He is not belittling himn or making light of his suffering. He is simply pointing out that He is responsible for all creation, and thus there is no way the creature can second guess how it is that the Creator holds it all in his hand, and redeems it all.

This is all God will tell Job, it is not an answer to satisfy those who want an explnation but it a reply and it amounts to this! You will have to trust me! You will have to believe that I know what I am doing and what does not make sense now will make sense in eternity!

And what does Job do? He repents: “Then Job answered the Lord: “I am unworthy—how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer— twice, but I will say no more.”(Job 40:3-5). He acknowledges that previously he had only heard of God but now he sees God face to face and he accepts God’s word on the matter.

Job repents of the subtle demand that God should always take care of ‘me’ and mine. That God should always be at my beck and call; seeing to my needs; keeping me conformtable and well and ensuring that no unhappiness or disadvantage come into my life. In short, Job repents of the demand that God serve his interests and not the other way round!

Job repents of the demand that God explain Himself to him! He repents of the need to know everything; of the need to be in control of everything. He accepts his creatureliness; accepts his vulnerability and his lack of control and let’s God be God! He accepts the mystery of God - “let God be God’!

Job accepts that life with God must be lived by faith! Faith is trusting what God is and does is way above and beyong what we can understand. We cannot scale God down and make Him fit into ou little brains. His ways are not our ways and his thoughts not our thoughts! Job gives up all attempts to measure God and put limits on Him and accepted the requirment to live life in the hands of the Creator: continuing to trust this God as the guarantor and stronghold of His life!

Was this easy for Job? Not one bit, but it is a word to those here perhaps who are angry with God or feel hurt by Him!

We need to be honest with ourselves here because seldom are we honest enough to admit that we have a contention with God that we do not appreciate His way of redeeming the world - we do not appreciate being vulnerable and dependent upon Him. It is too costly; too heavy a weight to carry. We don;t want a God who keeps us dependent, every day, every second of the day and yet removes Himself from us, leaving us in the shadows. Who can still beleive in a God when everything you loved and put your heart into has become a pile of dust?

Well Job did! - “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”(Job 42:2-6).

Sometimes, like Asaph we lose perspective and we behave foolishly towards God and other times, like Job we vent our spleen at God and whe we do so we must repent - repent thar we have evaluated the goodness of God and the quality of our lives only on the basis of sensual pleasures, bank accounts, material things, and fleshly enjoyments. Repent that we have demanded that God keeps us safe and satisfied and serves our best interests in this world as his first and only priotity!

When life doesn’t seem fair, we need to express…

IV. ADORATION: (vs 23-28).

“Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you. But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.”

Asaph began the Psalm with the declaration that “God is good” and he ends with a similar testimony, it is good to be near God.

“There is no parade of doubt merely as doubt. He states first, and in the most natural way, the final conviction of his heart.”(J. J. Stewart Perowne )

Let us learn, that when life seems unfair and dounts creep in to our minds and hearts, remember that ultimately God is the only lasting satisfaction we have!

God will be our all in all and so let’s beging today to make Him our all in all.

“Feel for His hand!”(Keller). Instead of searching for Utopia here on earth, let our hearts long for him just “as the deer longs for the waterbrooks”

“But as for me, it is good to be near God” - Let the goodness of God then be a remedy in our distress. "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God"(Psa 43v5).

Charles Swindoll tells the story of a young Midwestern lawyer suffering from such deep depression that his friends thought it best to keep all knives and razors out of his reach. He questioned his life's calling and the prudence of even attempting to follow it through. During this time he wrote, "I am now the most miserable man living. Whether I shall ever be better, I cannot tell. I awfully forebode I shall not." But somehow, from somewhere, Abraham Lincoln received the encouragement he needed, and the achievements of his life thoroughly vindicated his bout with discouragement. When hjis perspective changed, so did his life, for the better!

So, let us s like Asaph resolve to draw “near God”

Spurgeon said, "After having been driven far out to sea, Asaph casts anchor in the old port. We shall do well to follow his example."

Since our ultimate hope is in God and in heaven, we should be doing everything possible now, to prepare us for that time as we seek to know Him better in studying the Word, drawing closer in prayer to the throne of grace, and more earnestly pursuing the holiness without which no one shall see the Lord.

Let us rejoice in our position as children of the heavenly Father. Let us draw near to Him and be filled with a holy joy, remembering always that “God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart!(v1).