Overcoming Despondency
Psalm 73
There can be any number of causes of discouragement or depression. There can be physical causes, spiritual causes, circumstantial causes, relational causes, and on we could go, ad infinitum. Whatever the cause, there are very few of us who escape periods of discouragement, and some of us go to the depths of depression. In fact, many of us, at some point in our lives, or maybe as often as not, would characterize our condition as one of despondency.
Despondency. It is a state of extreme discouragement. A pit from which there seems to be no way out. A feeling of profound hopelessness. It is a heartsick gloom that renders one unmotivated to fight back. Have you ever been there? Are you there, now? Well, you are in good company.
This morning we will see how one of God’s great singers overcame despondency. Asaph was a singer – a very special singer who wrote 12 psalms. 1 Chronicles 25:1 tells us that Asaph founded one of the temple choirs. By the way, it is instructive to note that those who served in the religious choirs were gifted musicians.
This morning, we are going to look at a refreshingly honest psalm that Asaph authored – Psalm 73. In this psalm, we will be given a glimpse of a process in which God moved the writer’s focus from his surroundings to the Lord. Oh my, is there instruction for us! Let’s begin our time together reading this raw, yet rich, psalm. Would you please stand for the reading of the Word?
1. Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
2. But 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.
4. For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek.
5. They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
6. Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment.
7. Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies.
8. They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression.
9. They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth.
10. Therefore his people turn back to them, and find no fault in them.
11. And they say, “How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
12. Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches.
13. All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.
14. For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.
15. If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed the generation of Your children.
16. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task,
17. until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.
18. Truly You set them in slippery places; You make them fall to ruin.
19. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors!
20. Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when You rouse Yourself, You despise them as phantoms.
21. When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart,
22. I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward You.
23. Nevertheless, I am continually with You; You hold my right hand.
24. You 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.
27. For behold, those who are far from You shall perish; You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to You.
28. But as 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.
I want to begin our time by giving you an outline of this psalm – and then, we will not return to the outline again. So, if you want to get it, write it down, now. There is a logical flow to Asaph’s thoughts, because it was the process of his own personal journey. He was in a bad place when he began the psalm, but found healing as God gave him perspective. I am sure you know that when a psalm begins at one place and ends at another, it does not mean that the psalmist worked out his problems in the few minutes it takes to read it. The psalmist is recounting a period of time – maybe weeks, maybe years – in which he matured and grew spiritually. So it is with the 73rd psalm.
I. Comparing one’s circumstances with others can lead to despair
II. Discovery, for the believer, is often made in God’s house
III. God’s ultimate desire for us is that we find delight in Him
Asaph’s journey begins with an admission that comparing his own circumstances with others led him to despair, especially since he was struggling at the same time arrogant sinners were prospering. The contrast was glaring and Asaph found himself asking, “What’s wrong with this picture!?!” He made a discovery, though, when he began to reflect on the awkwardness of his attitude and found answers in God’s house. In the end, Asaph found his delight in God, not in the success he had so foolishly envied earlier in his journey. With this outline in mind, we are going to go back to the beginning of Psalm 73 and join Asaph for a brief look at a journey that may have taken him years to make. If you were not able to finish copying the outline, contact me and I will send it to you.
In the very first verse, Asaph acknowledges that God is good to His people, to those who have pure hearts. Of course, when Asaph began writing he knew where he would end because he was recalling a period in his life, but there is a sense in this psalm that he believed that God is always good to His people. No matter – Asaph was struggling! You may be frustrated with brothers and sisters in Christ who are struggling when you say, “You know that God is good,” and they say, “OF COURSE I KNOW! But I am still struggling.” Asaph knew all the answers – intellectually, that is. He was a Levite in David’s time, for goodness sake, but he was despondent, nonetheless. God wanted him to move beyond academic knowledge, though, so that he might know the answers to life’s biggest questions, both spiritually and experientially.
As soon as Asaph acknowledges that God is good, he gets into “woe is me” mode. “As for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped.” Been there, haven’t you? I am sure you have, but I wonder if you were as shockingly honest as Asaph, who said, “For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” He admitted his covetousness right up front. “I was envious,” he said, but what is shocking is what comes next – “I was envious of those arrogant cusses when I saw how they prospered – wicked people!” Now, that’s honest! We would most likely try to dress up our sin and say, “I was disgusted by the behavior of arrogant people when I saw what riches did to them.” Not Asaph – he told it like it was! “I envied those who were arrogant because of the success they had achieved. I wanted to be just like them.”
Most of us are not willing to admit our own envy when we criticize those with more money, more talent, more knowledge, more good looks, more whatever. We secretly want to be just like them, but that rarely finds its way into our conscious criticism. Often when we criticize them, we are only attempting to make ourselves feel better. That’s the wrong way, though, and we will get past our struggle sooner if we will admit that our problem is envy, not righteous indignation. When we compare ourselves to the wrong standard, especially when we feel inferior to the one with whom we are comparing ourselves, we are quite susceptible to depression. And then, our complaints start to roll. Asaph certainly complained!
“Look at them. From the moment they are born to the moment they die, they have no problems. They have all they want – all the food they desire, and good looks, too! The common man has troubles, but not these jokers.” Now, do you think Asaph could have known all these things to be true? Do you ever find yourself saying, “Look at old so and so – everything goes right for him.”? But, we have no idea about other people’s troubles, do we? Same with Asaph. That didn’t stop him from comparing and complaining, though.
“Not only are they trouble-free, but they think their success makes them kings and queens of the world! They display pride as a necklace, right along with those fancy clothes they wear. Then they think they can run roughshod all over people, and they will do anything to get what they want, even resorting to violence. They shake their fists at the heavens and threaten us lesser types. And amazingly, it seems as though everyone just loves them and thinks they are the finest things!” Asaph had it bad, didn’t he? There is more.
“They can shake their fists at heaven because they feel no accountability to Him. They have become so successful that they think, for all practical purposes, that they are the gods of their universe. You know how that makes me feel? It makes me feel like it does me no good whatsoever to follow the Lord. Why did I even get saved in the first place? These men and women follow the lusts of their hearts, and they just get richer and more successful all the time. I try to follow the Lord’s ways and I just get beat up, day in and day out. I can never enjoy the slightest pleasures without feeling guilty. I am just tired of it.”
It is likely that Asaph exaggerated the wickedness of those of whom he was envious, but then again, maybe he didn’t exaggerate. It could be that he was spot on with his assessment of some who made life miserable for others. But, even so, it was ultimately Asaph’s attitude that got him into trouble. Oh, how self-centered he became as he spiraled inexorably downward!
Have you ever been in that spiral? It may have been circumstances entirely different from those that Asaph encountered, but can you identify with his despair? There is no telling how long Asaph’s agony lasted, and if the psalm ended here, we would be left with no hope. But, there is a change in verse 15. Asaph’s conscience finally was heard.
“If I say what I am thinking,” Asaph told himself, “it will hurt my brothers and sisters.” We can learn a lesson from Asaph. It is not necessary to say everything that we are thinking! That is not being hypocritical, it is being considerate. Just because you are struggling doesn’t mean that you have to bring everyone else down with you. Asaph committed to keep his problems to himself – at least while he was struggling. But, there was a problem. He tried to work it out in his mind, those glaring inequities in life with the bad guys getting all the goody out of life, but he absolutely could not make sense of it all. Until, that is, he went into the sanctuary of God. Asaph was either referring to the tabernacle or the temple. His life likely overlapped the use of both places of worship. Either way, he found some answers in the house of the Lord.
That’s the way it is for us, too, isn’t it? When life gets overwhelming, we have two choices. We can sink into the abyss of bitterness and become angry with God and the world, or we can seek answers from the Lord. Where do we go for answers? Certainly, to God’s Word, but we often need more than personal Bible study, so we go to God’s house. That is just another reason you can/should feel good about contributing to the building fund! You may need this place more than you think, some day. In addition, where do you think people who are moving into our area are going to turn when they hit a life-crisis? If they did not consider church before such a time, they well may afterwards! So, what did Asaph discover in God’s sanctuary? He discerned the end of those who mock God with their success in this life. Their “end” in verse 17 is literally “their afterward,” or, their eternal destiny.
If you saw someone driving your dream car down the road with a gorgeous woman or extremely good looking man in the passenger’s seat and both with their heads thrown back laughing their way through life without a care in the world, you may be tempted to be jealous. If you knew for a fact that the bridge is out at the end of the road and they would be going over a 1,000 foot cliff at 60 mph, your attitude would immediately change. It was good enough for Asaph, with his Old Testament mindset, to see how things would really turn out in the end. For us, we need to jump in front of the car to warn the driver and passenger of the danger ahead, risking humiliation if necessary, or even risking life and limb. A little perspective on the future can dramatically change one’s present attitude.
God’s judgment comes in verses 18-20. Not only does God judge these arrogant pretenders, but He rejects them, He dismisses them. What a terrible pronouncement at judgment to hear Jesus say, “I never knew you – away from Me!” When we think of eternal judgment, we tend to focus on the terrors of hell, but how awful will it be simply to be out of God’s sphere of concern for all eternity? Finally, Asaph gets it.
And, now that Asaph sees the picture more clearly, he rues his former attitude. “I was a beast. I had no idea what I was talking about. Brutish, I was, utterly disgusting. I should have kept silent because my heart condemns me.” We all know that feeling, don’t we? Don’t we? If you have not been disgusted with yourself in the last year or two, then perhaps you are not being honest with yourself! Do not let your success – success of any kind – go to your head, lest you be on the wrong side of this psalm!
When you confess your foolish attitude to the Lord, not only do you find forgiveness, but you recognize that God was patiently beside you the whole time. Your future is secure, and that knowledge should bring you, with Asaph, to the place of delight in the Lord! Let’s read these last verses aloud, together. Would you join me as we read verses 25-28?
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.
27 For behold, those who are far from You shall perish; You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to You.
28 But as 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.
Would you like to have the kind of heart found in verse 25? It may come only after a period of great difficulty, like Asaph experienced. Of course, Asaph’s troubles were a result of his failure to control his own desires and covetous heart. Your trouble may be similar to Asaph’s, or it may be of an entirely different nature. It may seem inconceivable that you will go from despair to delight, but God may have absolutely had you in mind when He led Asaph to record his struggles.
When Asaph said that his flesh and heart may fail, he is referring to death. His statement is fairly significant because OT saints did not understand the afterlife nearly as well as we do. Oh, there are indications that they believed in some kind of existence, but Asaph goes so far as to say that God will be his strength and portion even at and after his death. If Asaph could say that, how much more can we say that God is our strength and portion at death when we understand that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord?
Asaph brings his writing to a close by recalling the truth of the end of those who are opposed to God. He then ends by committing to draw near to the Lord. You will remember back in verse 15 that Asaph wisely decided to remain quiet when his heart was bitter. Now that God has showered His grace on Asaph, the psalmist vows to tell of God’s great works! When God is your refuge, it is time to tell someone. This morning, even if you are in a state of despondency, God wants to bring you out of your depression, maybe not immediately, but when He has worked in your life as He desires. May you find comfort and help in the 73rd Psalm. Let’s pray.
Psalm 73
There can be any number of causes of discouragement or depression. There can be physical causes, spiritual causes, circumstantial causes, relational causes, and on we could go, ad infinitum. Whatever the cause, there are very few of us who escape periods of discouragement, and some of us go to the depths of depression. In fact, many of us, at some point in our lives, or maybe as often as not, would characterize our condition as one of despondency.
Despondency. It is a state of extreme discouragement. A pit from which there seems to be no way out. A feeling of profound hopelessness. It is a heartsick gloom that renders one unmotivated to fight back. Have you ever been there? Are you there, now? Well, you are in good company.
This morning we will see how one of God’s great singers overcame despondency. Asaph was a singer – a very special singer who wrote 12 psalms. 1 Chronicles 25:1 tells us that Asaph founded one of the temple choirs. By the way, it is instructive to note that those who served in the religious choirs were gifted musicians.
This morning, we are going to look at a refreshingly honest psalm that Asaph authored – Psalm 73. In this psalm, we will be given a glimpse of a process in which God moved the writer’s focus from his surroundings to the Lord. Oh my, is there instruction for us! Let’s begin our time together reading this raw, yet rich, psalm. Would you please stand for the reading of the Word?
1. Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.
2. But 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.
4. For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek.
5. They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
6. Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment.
7. Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies.
8. They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression.
9. They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth.
10. Therefore his people turn back to them, and find no fault in them.
11. And they say, “How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
12. Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches.
13. All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.
14. For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.
15. If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed the generation of Your children.
16. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task,
17. until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.
18. Truly You set them in slippery places; You make them fall to ruin.
19. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors!
20. Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when You rouse Yourself, You despise them as phantoms.
21. When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart,
22. I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward You.
23. Nevertheless, I am continually with You; You hold my right hand.
24. You 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.
27. For behold, those who are far from You shall perish; You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to You.
28. But as 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.
I want to begin our time by giving you an outline of this psalm – and then, we will not return to the outline again. So, if you want to get it, write it down, now. There is a logical flow to Asaph’s thoughts, because it was the process of his own personal journey. He was in a bad place when he began the psalm, but found healing as God gave him perspective. I am sure you know that when a psalm begins at one place and ends at another, it does not mean that the psalmist worked out his problems in the few minutes it takes to read it. The psalmist is recounting a period of time – maybe weeks, maybe years – in which he matured and grew spiritually. So it is with the 73rd psalm.
I. Comparing one’s circumstances with others can lead to despair
II. Discovery, for the believer, is often made in God’s house
III. God’s ultimate desire for us is that we find delight in Him
Asaph’s journey begins with an admission that comparing his own circumstances with others led him to despair, especially since he was struggling at the same time arrogant sinners were prospering. The contrast was glaring and Asaph found himself asking, “What’s wrong with this picture!?!” He made a discovery, though, when he began to reflect on the awkwardness of his attitude and found answers in God’s house. In the end, Asaph found his delight in God, not in the success he had so foolishly envied earlier in his journey. With this outline in mind, we are going to go back to the beginning of Psalm 73 and join Asaph for a brief look at a journey that may have taken him years to make. If you were not able to finish copying the outline, contact me and I will send it to you.
In the very first verse, Asaph acknowledges that God is good to His people, to those who have pure hearts. Of course, when Asaph began writing he knew where he would end because he was recalling a period in his life, but there is a sense in this psalm that he believed that God is always good to His people. No matter – Asaph was struggling! You may be frustrated with brothers and sisters in Christ who are struggling when you say, “You know that God is good,” and they say, “OF COURSE I KNOW! But I am still struggling.” Asaph knew all the answers – intellectually, that is. He was a Levite in David’s time, for goodness sake, but he was despondent, nonetheless. God wanted him to move beyond academic knowledge, though, so that he might know the answers to life’s biggest questions, both spiritually and experientially.
As soon as Asaph acknowledges that God is good, he gets into “woe is me” mode. “As for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped.” Been there, haven’t you? I am sure you have, but I wonder if you were as shockingly honest as Asaph, who said, “For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” He admitted his covetousness right up front. “I was envious,” he said, but what is shocking is what comes next – “I was envious of those arrogant cusses when I saw how they prospered – wicked people!” Now, that’s honest! We would most likely try to dress up our sin and say, “I was disgusted by the behavior of arrogant people when I saw what riches did to them.” Not Asaph – he told it like it was! “I envied those who were arrogant because of the success they had achieved. I wanted to be just like them.”
Most of us are not willing to admit our own envy when we criticize those with more money, more talent, more knowledge, more good looks, more whatever. We secretly want to be just like them, but that rarely finds its way into our conscious criticism. Often when we criticize them, we are only attempting to make ourselves feel better. That’s the wrong way, though, and we will get past our struggle sooner if we will admit that our problem is envy, not righteous indignation. When we compare ourselves to the wrong standard, especially when we feel inferior to the one with whom we are comparing ourselves, we are quite susceptible to depression. And then, our complaints start to roll. Asaph certainly complained!
“Look at them. From the moment they are born to the moment they die, they have no problems. They have all they want – all the food they desire, and good looks, too! The common man has troubles, but not these jokers.” Now, do you think Asaph could have known all these things to be true? Do you ever find yourself saying, “Look at old so and so – everything goes right for him.”? But, we have no idea about other people’s troubles, do we? Same with Asaph. That didn’t stop him from comparing and complaining, though.
“Not only are they trouble-free, but they think their success makes them kings and queens of the world! They display pride as a necklace, right along with those fancy clothes they wear. Then they think they can run roughshod all over people, and they will do anything to get what they want, even resorting to violence. They shake their fists at the heavens and threaten us lesser types. And amazingly, it seems as though everyone just loves them and thinks they are the finest things!” Asaph had it bad, didn’t he? There is more.
“They can shake their fists at heaven because they feel no accountability to Him. They have become so successful that they think, for all practical purposes, that they are the gods of their universe. You know how that makes me feel? It makes me feel like it does me no good whatsoever to follow the Lord. Why did I even get saved in the first place? These men and women follow the lusts of their hearts, and they just get richer and more successful all the time. I try to follow the Lord’s ways and I just get beat up, day in and day out. I can never enjoy the slightest pleasures without feeling guilty. I am just tired of it.”
It is likely that Asaph exaggerated the wickedness of those of whom he was envious, but then again, maybe he didn’t exaggerate. It could be that he was spot on with his assessment of some who made life miserable for others. But, even so, it was ultimately Asaph’s attitude that got him into trouble. Oh, how self-centered he became as he spiraled inexorably downward!
Have you ever been in that spiral? It may have been circumstances entirely different from those that Asaph encountered, but can you identify with his despair? There is no telling how long Asaph’s agony lasted, and if the psalm ended here, we would be left with no hope. But, there is a change in verse 15. Asaph’s conscience finally was heard.
“If I say what I am thinking,” Asaph told himself, “it will hurt my brothers and sisters.” We can learn a lesson from Asaph. It is not necessary to say everything that we are thinking! That is not being hypocritical, it is being considerate. Just because you are struggling doesn’t mean that you have to bring everyone else down with you. Asaph committed to keep his problems to himself – at least while he was struggling. But, there was a problem. He tried to work it out in his mind, those glaring inequities in life with the bad guys getting all the goody out of life, but he absolutely could not make sense of it all. Until, that is, he went into the sanctuary of God. Asaph was either referring to the tabernacle or the temple. His life likely overlapped the use of both places of worship. Either way, he found some answers in the house of the Lord.
That’s the way it is for us, too, isn’t it? When life gets overwhelming, we have two choices. We can sink into the abyss of bitterness and become angry with God and the world, or we can seek answers from the Lord. Where do we go for answers? Certainly, to God’s Word, but we often need more than personal Bible study, so we go to God’s house. That is just another reason you can/should feel good about contributing to the building fund! You may need this place more than you think, some day. In addition, where do you think people who are moving into our area are going to turn when they hit a life-crisis? If they did not consider church before such a time, they well may afterwards! So, what did Asaph discover in God’s sanctuary? He discerned the end of those who mock God with their success in this life. Their “end” in verse 17 is literally “their afterward,” or, their eternal destiny.
If you saw someone driving your dream car down the road with a gorgeous woman or extremely good looking man in the passenger’s seat and both with their heads thrown back laughing their way through life without a care in the world, you may be tempted to be jealous. If you knew for a fact that the bridge is out at the end of the road and they would be going over a 1,000 foot cliff at 60 mph, your attitude would immediately change. It was good enough for Asaph, with his Old Testament mindset, to see how things would really turn out in the end. For us, we need to jump in front of the car to warn the driver and passenger of the danger ahead, risking humiliation if necessary, or even risking life and limb. A little perspective on the future can dramatically change one’s present attitude.
God’s judgment comes in verses 18-20. Not only does God judge these arrogant pretenders, but He rejects them, He dismisses them. What a terrible pronouncement at judgment to hear Jesus say, “I never knew you – away from Me!” When we think of eternal judgment, we tend to focus on the terrors of hell, but how awful will it be simply to be out of God’s sphere of concern for all eternity? Finally, Asaph gets it.
And, now that Asaph sees the picture more clearly, he rues his former attitude. “I was a beast. I had no idea what I was talking about. Brutish, I was, utterly disgusting. I should have kept silent because my heart condemns me.” We all know that feeling, don’t we? Don’t we? If you have not been disgusted with yourself in the last year or two, then perhaps you are not being honest with yourself! Do not let your success – success of any kind – go to your head, lest you be on the wrong side of this psalm!
When you confess your foolish attitude to the Lord, not only do you find forgiveness, but you recognize that God was patiently beside you the whole time. Your future is secure, and that knowledge should bring you, with Asaph, to the place of delight in the Lord! Let’s read these last verses aloud, together. Would you join me as we read verses 25-28?
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.
27 For behold, those who are far from You shall perish; You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to You.
28 But as 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.
Would you like to have the kind of heart found in verse 25? It may come only after a period of great difficulty, like Asaph experienced. Of course, Asaph’s troubles were a result of his failure to control his own desires and covetous heart. Your trouble may be similar to Asaph’s, or it may be of an entirely different nature. It may seem inconceivable that you will go from despair to delight, but God may have absolutely had you in mind when He led Asaph to record his struggles.
When Asaph said that his flesh and heart may fail, he is referring to death. His statement is fairly significant because OT saints did not understand the afterlife nearly as well as we do. Oh, there are indications that they believed in some kind of existence, but Asaph goes so far as to say that God will be his strength and portion even at and after his death. If Asaph could say that, how much more can we say that God is our strength and portion at death when we understand that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord?
Asaph brings his writing to a close by recalling the truth of the end of those who are opposed to God. He then ends by committing to draw near to the Lord. You will remember back in verse 15 that Asaph wisely decided to remain quiet when his heart was bitter. Now that God has showered His grace on Asaph, the psalmist vows to tell of God’s great works! When God is your refuge, it is time to tell someone. This morning, even if you are in a state of despondency, God wants to bring you out of your depression, maybe not immediately, but when He has worked in your life as He desires. May you find comfort and help in the 73rd Psalm. Let’s pray.
1 comment:
The sermon and Psalm are only as hard to apply as the struggles we are going through are difficult. We all need to get to the place that verse 25 is our cry....May His grace give us strength!
Post a Comment