Psalm 73: What to Do When God Disappoints You

INTRODUCTION

In an article in Christian Century (Feb. 11, 2011), Pastor Diane Ross tells about how she had gotten a call a couple of weeks before from a woman in her congregation. The woman had been coming to church with an older gentleman, a friend of the family. He couldn't drive anymore, so this woman had volunteered to take him to church. She had said it would help her be more regular in her own worship attendance. When she called, she was excited. She wanted her pastor to officiate at her wedding in May.

“I'm 60 years old and I'm getting married for the first time!” she told her pastor. She couldn't believe her luck. She had gotten re-acquainted with an old friend, the son of the man that she brought to church, and they had decided to get married.

A week after this call, the woman was hospitalized with complications from a cold. On Thursday night, she had a stroke. On Tuesday she died.

When Pastor Roth walked into the room of the woman’s mother to plan the funeral, the mother’s first words were: “It didn’t turn out right.”

A lot of things in life “just don’t turn out right.”

I cringe when I hear a fellow-believer say—in response to some tragic event. “Well, God’s in control.”

It is a false and harmful idea that the troubles and sorrows of the world are somehow orchestrated by God, so that all that seems so bad is somehow part of God’s plan.

A friend of mine has a granddaughter who was afflicted with cancer as a child in grade school. She was hospitalized for a year, and lost a leg.

She had been a bright, athletic little girl. The year she lost put her way behind in school. She has endured the taunts of her classmates. Her life was changed forever. This girl has now graduated from high school.

Her grandfather told me, “She hates God.”

The Bible tells us that many, many things happen in our world that are not God’s will. God is not in control in the sense that he orchestrates every sad event that happens to his people, so that in some way, we can’t understand, tragedies are really blessings.

God grieves with us. It’s in the Bible. Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus.

In the midst of those sorrowing people, he was reminded of the magnitude of the tragedy of death.

Jesus wept as he looked over Jerusalem and realized that the people he loved were hurrying on to destruction—unimaginable suffering.

According to Ephesians 4:30, when we sin, we grieve God.

I’m convinced that it isn’t only humans who grieve God. When God made the natural world, he set it free to pursue its destiny. That’s why we have earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, and droughts.

In the Bible book of Ecclesiastes, we read: “I saw that under the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the skillful, but time and chance happen to them all.” (9:11).

God doesn’t micromanage the world, as some suppose, organizing every event in such a way that it follows a script he wrote in before the Creation.

The Bible does teach that “Everything works for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.” But what that verse means is that God is able to make all events—even tragic ones—fit into his purpose to bless his children.

It doesn’t mean that “everything that  happens, happens for the best”; that simply isn’t true.

We don’t honor God when we assure people that their sufferings are inflicted by God.

The important thing to think about is that God can use every event—even tragic ones, like the woman who died just before her wedding day—for our ultimate blessing, given that we love God. This may be an idea that is hard to get our minds around. But sometimes we can see God use bad things for good.

One of the things heaven is for, is to make things come out right.

Someday, the woman who was so bitterly disappointed in her hopes for happiness will be filled with joy. She will see how God has woven her tragedy into a plan for her blessing. This is not something we can explain now. A lot of the mysteries of life will be cleared up when we get to Glory.

On earth “we walk by faith; not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Faith is a venture. Faith involves risk. So while faith is not proof, faith gives us confidence. When we can’t understand—when we can’t prove God is good—we can live with the conviction that God is good and that at the end we will not be disappointed.

We are confident of many things we can’t prove. We believe in our friends. They could let us down, but if they are good friends, we believe in them.

I would like to read you a psalm written long ago—long before the time of Christ, by a disappointed believer, who came to understand something of the meaning of his troubles.

The believer who wrote this psalm had been taught that if people forsake God and live wicked lives, trouble will surely come. They will get what they deserve.

And, according to his theology, if we live faithfully and obey God, God will give us happiness and prosperity. We will get what we deserve.

Then when tragedies happened that he couldn’t explain, he became disillusioned.

He saw his wicked neighbor who never went to church—who lived for himself and who took advantage of others—having a wonderful life of health, and prosperity.

The psalmist knew that he had lived for God. He made righteous choices—and his life was full of trouble. He was disappointed with God, and his faith began to slip away.

He looks back on that time in Psalm 73. The psalm begins this way:

“Truly God is good to the upright,

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;

I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

For they have no pain;

their bodies are sound and sleek.

They are not in trouble as others are;

they are not plagued like other people.

Therefore, pride is their necklace,

violence covers them like a garment.

Their eyes swell out with fatness;

their hearts overflow with follies.” (Psalm 73.1-7).

I. Have you ever been disappointed with God?

A. You’ve tried to be faithful, but you see selfish arrogant godless people having untroubled, successful lives.

You are suffering unjustly…an incurable illness …the death of a loved one … disappointment …depression…

Maybe you wonder whether you’ve somehow brought this trouble on yourself by some sin you’ve committed.

Maybe you tried to live for God, but you haven’t experienced the success you believed God promises to his faithful ones.

You look back over your life and you wonder whether you’ve accomplished anything really worthwhile.

B. The psalmist says his feet almost stumbled, his steps had nearly slipped—he had almost yielded to despair—he almost gave up on God.

Have you ever been there? I have. I’ve seen it in others. I’ve seen some actually give up on God and walk away from faith.

I remember a friend from my younger days who I admired, who I looked up to. He was an exemplary Christian. He was a good speaker. If I had his gift for speaking, maybe we could have filled up all the chairs in this room today.

But when my friend’s marriage failed, he prayed earnestly that his wife would come back. She didn’t, and my friend gave up on God.

I have not heard anything about him for many years, but as far as I know, he still doesn’t consider himself a Christian. He is still living his life without God.

C. The story is told that one day the devil put all his tools on display.

They were a treacherous lot of implements: hatred, envy, deceit, lying, lust, avarice, hypocrisy. And lying apart from the rest was a well-worn, but harmless-looking tool.

“What is the name of this tool?” asked one of the viewers.

“That tool,” said the devil, “is more useful to me than all the others. It is discouragement. I can pry open and get inside a heart with discouragement when I can’t get near a person with the other tools. Once I get inside I can pry that person away from his God. It is badly worn because I use it on almost everyone, since so few people know it belongs to me.”

Have you ever been discouraged? Have you ever prayed and wondered whether there was a God to hear you? I have.

I remember that during the genocide in Rwanda, in which thousands were slaughtered, someone at our church gave a testimony about how at a church conference he had gone to, a person had come to play in a band and he had lost his tuba. He prayed about it, and looked up and there was his friend with his tuba. He thought that was a wonderful answer to prayer.

But that story didn’t nourish my faith. It raised questions in my mind. If God answered that man’s prayer for his tuba, why didn’t God answer the prayers of all those Africans who were being slaughtered in that terrible civil war?

Questions like this were tormenting the psalmist. Everything he believed had been called into question. He felt his faith slipping away.

II. But then the psalmist went to church—for him it was the Temple—and there he got a new perspective on life. He writes (vv16-17):

“When I thought how to understand this,

it seemed to me a wearisome task,

until I went into the sanctuary of God;

then I perceived their end.”

A. In the Temple he had met God. And that made all the difference.

For you the sanctuary—the holy place—could be wherever you meet God. It could be at church. It could be sitting in your chair in your room with your Bible. It could be as you pray and meditate lying in your bed.

You reflect, as the psalmist did, on your destiny as a child of God.

You turn the eyes of your soul toward God and consider eternity. You go in your imagination to God’s country—the land of eternal joys, the land of unbroken delight with your Savior. I have found that sometimes it is in the darkest valleys that our God comes to me with assurance.

I may not feel God to be with me at the time, but later, looking back, I know he was. That time when I felt forsaken becomes a precious time for me.

Open the Bible…read some of your favorite parts…Close your eyes in prayer and pour out your heart to God...

Come to worship. Come to Bible study. Talk about matters of faith with other believers. Share your story.

Our psalmist met God as he meditated and sought the Lord.

B. Then he found peace. We don’t know how long it took, but finally the light came back on. He recovered his confidence in God. He reminded himself of what he knew for sure. He told God:

“Nevertheless I am continually with you;

you hold me by 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 upon earth that I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever” (vv23-25).

Let’s look at each line of this little prayer:

“Nevertheless,” the psalmist says, “I am always with you…”

His God wasn’t far away after all. He could hold onto that. God was always close at hand and shared his struggles. Maybe he remembered Psalm 34: “God is near the broken-hearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”

Then the psalmist says, “…you hold my right hand.”….A gentle, strong clasp… God will not let him go.

Do you remember how tightly your children held onto your hand?

The psalmist’s next words are: “You guide me with your counsel…”

We may not see God or hear God or touch God. But we know by faith that God is with us.

And by faith we do see God—with the eyes of our heart—and we do hear God and we do touch God. We can believe that God is with us. Jesus walks with us, even through the darkest valley.

And then the psalmist comforts himself with this thought: “…and afterward you will receive me to glory.”

In one nursing home where we were having services, one of the faithful members of our congregation said to me several times: “I don’t know how people live without God…without faith…” I don’t either. Life without God seems so bleak! I seem to have no choice. No matter how many things I can’t understand, I have to hold on to what I know, what I have proved in my life.

I see the results of faith in God in the lives of people I have known well—and in my life too—and I have to believe. No other alternative is half so satisfying. I don’t have to have all the answers.

Let’s review those words of the psalmist, in which he testified of his new-found assurance:

“Nevertheless I am continually with you;

you hold me by 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 upon earth that I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever”

CONCLUSION

And the psalm ends on a triumphant note (vv26 and 28):

“My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart

and my portion for ever…

For me it is good to be near God;

I have made the Lord God my refuge,

to tell of all your works.”

Where our translation reads, “But for me it is good to be near God,” another translation (New Jerusalem) reads, “My happiness is to be near God.”

I have read that archeologists have found an ancient gravestone in what is now Turkey. On it is written, underneath the name of the believer, the words: “My soul dwells in goodness.”

“In this life,” a believer once wrote, “drops of joy enter into our life. In the world to come we will enter into the joy of the Lord.”

Don’t give up on God, because God won’t give up on you.

Live your life for God. Trust and obey. Serve God by serving others. Obedience nourishes faith.