Summer in the Psalms (6)

Dealing with doubt

Psalm 73 ESV

A Psalm of Asaph. Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind. Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies. They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth. Therefore his people turn back to them, and find no fault in them. And they say, “How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?” Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning. If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed the generation of your children. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end. Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors! Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But 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.

“You just gotta have faith!”

Maybe you’ve used this phrase or someone had said this to you.

This phrase has been uttered by countless well-meaning people in response to genuine questions addressed to them. And it’s true; sometimes learning to trust is the key to getting through rough patches in our faith. But it is equally true that one of the ways to achieve a greater ability to rely on God is to have your sincere genuine questions answered. Sometimes we don’t answer people’s questions because we feel like they are attacking what we believe. Sometimes we don’t have an answer because the question never occurred to us or we never thought it was that big a deal. Sometimes, we simply don’t know the answer. This kind of avoidance has created a culture within the church where people don’t feel like they can ask questions about their faith and get meaningful answers. Instead of being eager to learn more about their faith, many people walk around feeling nervous or guilty when they hit upon a question that they need an answer to but can’t seem to find. Many people feel that even simply to have questions about their faith is somehow wrong and a danger. I have had numerous encounters with people over coffee or a meal where they express concern that they are losing their faith. When I ask why, they tell me of some question they have that they can’t seem to get beyond. My answer is always the same. I tell them, “You aren’t losing your faith, you are gaining it.” Christianity is an evidence giving religion. The Book of Acts is full of stories about early Christians going from place to place giving evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, arguing and defending belief, and answering people’s questions. Getting answers to sincerely held questions is central to growing one’s faith. Faith isn’t a light switch that is either on or off. It is more like a muscle; it gets stronger the more you use it. All of us are somewhere between complete faith and complete doubt. Like the father in Mark 9:24, we cry out “I do believe; help my unbelief.” Psalm 73 is a prime example of the importance of dealing with doubts. It should be noted that this isn’t a random congregant who is struggling with his faith. It is a teacher and leader. He recounts a time when his faith was put to the test and how he dealt with it. By looking at this Psalm, we gain a window into how to grow our faith by voicing our concerns and letting God answer.

Share your story: v1-2

This Psalm isn’t simply about doubt. It’s about having your doubt answered. It was written to show how the psalmist addressed his doubt and how God answered him. But it starts at the end. “God is good to Israel.” This is the conclusion the psalmist comes to by the end of the psalm. “But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling, my steps had almost slipped.” This psalm is a story about how even leaders have doubts, concerns, and frustrations. Before we look at the process the psalmist took to avoid the pitfalls of his faith, it is worth noting the importance of sharing the paths we have walked and the truth we have discovered after hard searching. Everyone has times when they think God is unfair, or being righteous is pointless, or your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling. These times become harder if we think we are alone and are the only ones to ever ask these questions or walk these paths. Sharing our stories gives people the confidence to ask their questions. It also shows them the paths we took to find answers. This psalm is a testimony of the importance of sharing our story for the purpose of helping others. Psalms 73 Dealing with Doubt [ 19 ]

Face Your Frustration: v3-14

The psalmist then proceeds to reveal what was causing him problems: the prosperity of the wicked. He was beyond bewildered, and frustrated by the fact that righteousness didn’t seem to matter. It was the wicked who were prosperous, healthy, and successful. He spends almost 10 verses describing how successful and happy the wicked are before concluding in exasperation: “Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and washed my hands in innocence. (v13)” He is angry that righteousness doesn’t seem to have a reward. What was the point of being good if the wicked reap all the benefits and the righteous are “stricken all day long and chastened every morning. (v14)” The psalmist’s complaint might seem unfair or extreme but it won’t do any good trying to censor yourself before God or moderate your complaint. Get it all out there. I saw a show on a nature channel one time about the sea cucumber, which has an amazing defense mechanism. When attacked, the sea cucumber can regurgitate its internal organs. The predator eats what it wants, then swims off. The sea cucumber then regrows its innards. It might sound oddly graphic, but it paints a picture of how God wants us to approach him. Psalm 63:8 says, “Trust in the Lord at all times, O people; Pour out your heart before Him.” It’s hard to deal with a problem that you are unwilling to put on the table. The psalmist lays it all out there, and because it’s all out there, God can deal with it.

Beware of Broadcasting: v15

This psalm is a testimony of the importance of asking questions and seeking answers. But there is an area where we must be careful. Sometimes we can transform our doubt from the humble searching after truth into a stubborn arrogant refusal to be satisfied by any answer. That is when someone moves from having doubts to being a skeptic. A skeptic is someone who is a professional questioner of everything. Because he sees through everything, he ends up seeing nothing. The skeptic takes pleasure in making people uncomfortable and wrecking people’s faith. The psalmist says that though he has doubts, he hasn’t become a skeptic: “If I had said, “I will speak thus,” Behold, I would have betrayed the generation of Your children (v15).” He isn’t saying that it would’ve been wrong to speak about his doubts and ask his questions. He is saying that it would’ve been wrong for him to teach his doubts. If, based on the frustrations he had previously voiced, he would have been wrong to walk into the Temple and say, “Righteousness is pointless, go live however you want, you’ll be better off.” We should heed his warning. We should always be free about voicing our doubts. We should also have doubts about our doubts. It is when we become certain about out doubts and start teaching them like they are facts that we get into trouble.

The Role of Reason: v16

The next step the psalmist takes is to use his reason and wrestle with it a while. Verse 16 says, “When I pondered to understand this, it was troublesome in my sight.” Though he ultimately realizes that reasoning won’t get him the satisfying answer he is looking for, he does use his reason to sort through some of his problems. This is an important stage in addressing your doubt. God gave us brains and he expects us to use them. We need to learn to think clearly and deeply about difficult issues. We also need to learn how to find the good answers other believers have discovered. Hebrews 12:1 says that “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.” There is more than a chance, there is a strong likelihood, that the questions I am asking have been asked before. Discovering the answers other followers of Jesus have found can strengthen and deepen your faith. But reason isn’t the only thing. Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal once said that there are two dangerously extreme ditches we can fall into “To exclude reason; to admit nothing but reason.” If there is a reasonable answer to what we are seeking, we should accept it. We need to realize that reason won’t always satisfy our questions. That is what the psalmist says, even though he was reasoning within himself about his issue, still “it [ 20 ] was troublesome” to him. When we find ourselves at the limits of our reason, we need to realize that it’s okay to be, as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:8, “perplexed, but not despairing.” There is more to life than reason. We have to learn, like the psalmist did, to take the next step.

Worship Transforms: v17-28

“Until I came into the sanctuary of God, then I perceived… (v17)” Despite his voicing his concerns and wrestling with them, the psalmist was still stuck. The transformation happened when he goes to the Temple to worship. When we take the focus off ourselves, or other people or our problems and place the focus on God, all other thing find their proper place and significance. Like a wheel with spokes, the key to getting everything in place is to make sure all the spokes are connected to the hub. Once that happens, they all line up with each other. Worship helps us understand our reality better because it considers how all things find their proper place in relationship to who God is. The psalmist was jealous of others, frustrated with God, and regretful about himself until he started worshipping God. Worship reframes the way we see God, ourselves, and others. The rest of the psalm contains the new perspective he gained while worshiping. Worship gives us a new way of seeing:

The End of the Wicked: v18-20

The first thing the psalmist saw was the destiny of the people he had been envying. We covet a person’s wealth, or freedom, or possessions, or health, but sometimes we fail to take their whole life, past, present, and future, into account. When we compare ourselves to others, we normally compare what it is going wrong with our lives with something that is going right in someone else’s. We wouldn’t want their whole life, good and bad, we want the good stuff in our life mixed with the good stuff of other people’s live. But worship helped the psalmist see the lives of the wicked from God’s eternal perspective. He saw that their end was destruction. Not just that God would judge their sin, but also that their life ultimately ends in destroying itself. It is an empty and pointless life that leaves no mark when it is gone, “like a dream when one awakes.” Proverbs 24:1-2 says, “Do not be envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them; For their minds devise violence, and their lips talk of trouble.” Don’t envy the successes of evil people, in order to obtain that you would have to do what they did.

The Effect of Envy: v21-22

The psalmist also realizes what envy has done to himself. Pierced, embittered, senseless, ignorant, this is what envy makes us. I’ve heard it described as drinking poison and expecting your enemy to get sick.

The Goodness of God: v23-28

In the end, the psalmist realizes the profound goodness of God. He also realizes the nature of that goodness. Sometimes we want the goodness of God to be that He gives us whatever we want then leaves us alone to enjoy it. But verse 28 very succinctly defines what specifically the goodness of God is. “The nearness of God is my good.” The overwhelming goodness, joy, purpose, and fulfillment God has for us is not something that can be enjoyed apart from Him because it flows from Him. That is what John 15:5 means: “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” Back in Psalm 73, the verses preceding 28 describe how exactly God is near and what benefit we derive from it.

God Holds Us: v23

Despite our jealously and bitterness, God is still present with us. He promises never to leave us or forsake us. That means even when we are being difficult or stubborn, He never lets us go.

God Guides Us: v24

Not only is He with us, He guides us. He has a path marked out for us. He has a race for each of us to run. And He doesn’t let us wander aimlessly trying to find it. He counsels and guides us.

God Receives Us: v24

He is there at the beginning. He is there along the way. He will be there at the end. Drawing close to God now means staying close to God forever. That is what heaven really is. Heaven isn’t getting whatever you want as if it were a spiritual lottery or amusement park. Heaven is being near God always, and experiencing everything that living in the light of His presence means.

Conclusion The central truth of this psalm is found in v28: “the nearness of God is my good.” But the best conclusion to be drawn from the psalm is found in v26: “My flesh and my heart may fail, But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Your mind may deceive you. Your body may fail you. You and I are not always good judges of what will bring us joy in the end. But God is ultimately utterly dependable. He will give you strength when yours fails you. He will provide you with an inheritance (portion) when it feels like you are destitute. So do what the psalmist says he did in v28: “I have made the Lord God my refuge.”