TLIC Psalms. June 19. Continually with You.

Read Psalm 73:21-24.  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.

Asaph can finally see where his envy and self-pity has led him – brutish ignorance. It was the beastly serpent that questioned God in the garden, and now it is Asaph taking on the role of embittered prosecutor interrogating God in his ignorance. 

But thank God for this word, nevertheless. In spite of Asaph’s doubts and questioning of the Divine, God never let him go. God was always with him, always holding him, always guiding him. The crisis of faith that Asaph experienced is the very thing that God was using to strengthen his heart, so that Asaph wouldn’t focus on the present inconsistencies of life, but his future reception into eternal glory.

In Christ, we too are grasped, guided, and glorified, in spite of our own brutish ignorance, for Christ is doing the same for us as he did for Asaph – using the distress of doubt to strengthen our faith not destroy it.

What inconsistencies in this world are causing you to doubt the goodness of God? Where is your mind troubled, your soul embittered, your heart pricked? Know this, that God is using all things for the good of those that are being transformed into the likeness of Christ (Rom. 8:28). In him, the justified have already been glorified. The present remains a mystery, but the future is secure.

To live is Christ is to experience life in the continuous presence of God. Grasped, guided, glorified.

You: Have you been doubting the goodness of God?

You in Christ: How can your understanding of your union with Christ allow you to strengthen your faith in the midst of tribulations?

Christ in you: How can you be aware of the presence of Christ throughout the day today?

Pray: Father, I trust that no matter how confusing this life gets you will one day receive me to glory. I set my eyes of faith on the day of Christ, rather than on what I see around me today. Amen.