Borrowing Asaph’s Grid
“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.” ~Psalm 73:1-3
In Psalm 73, Asaph laments the success, power, malice, pride, violence, and blasphemy of those who hate God and reject His sovereign rule. Asaph is overwhelmed as he considers the trouble of the righteous and the apparent ease of those who call good evil and evil good. Could Asaph have written a more apropos psalm to describe life today? Look around, friends: unrighteousness is exalted while the truth of God’s Word is openly mocked on the one hand, or illegitimately hijacked for personal gain on the other. In verse 16 Asaph says he’s exhausted from thinking about the injustice he sees all around him. Does your mind reel and your heart hurt as you consider the cesspool of ideologies which are championed by many in the entertainment industry, politics, and the academy? Asaph gets it.
One could imagine Asaph asking King David for a battalion of troops with which to attack the wicked: “Give me one thousand of the finest warriors! We’ll go from Dan to Beersheba laying waste to those who commit these abominable sins!” One could imagine this request… perhaps the thought has even entered your own mind. But that’s not what Asaph does. Why?
Because Asaph’s answer is not found in having a physical outlet to his simmering frustration. It’s not found in taking up the sword. It’s not found in repaying evil for evil or reviling for reviling. If he were alive today, it wouldn’t be found in typing in all caps as he rages online against his foes. Rather, Asaph knows the answer is found in God’s sovereign rule now and His certain judgment in the future; in the promise that God Himself will ultimately work justice for His glory and for His people.
Notice the magnificent conclusion to Asaph’s psalm: in his desperate search for some good in the world — for some glimmer of beauty, justice, shalom — he looks not to the promise that the wicked will soon lose their power and cease oppressing the righteous, but to the presence of God with His people (verses 25-26, 28). He is satisfied knowing that God is with and for His people, and that He will mete out justice in the eschaton.
My dear friends, we need to borrow Asaph’s grid — we need to pray like Asaph, think like Asaph, trust like Asaph, and worship like Asaph. He prays that God would act according to His promises and nature. He thinks about the wicked and his own circumstances in light of God’s sovereignty. He trusts the Lord to bring about justice, even if it’s not until the life to come. And he sings a psalm of praise to his Lord for who He is, what He has done, and what He has promised to do.
So, Christian, pray to the Lord who sees the wickedness all around us. Think about the wicked through the grid of God’s providence. Trust the Lord to work all things for the good of those who love Him. Sing praises to the God who has helped us thus far, for surely He will never leave us or forsake us. Is not the Lord is our helper? Therefore, we will not fear; what can man do to us? Truly God is good to His covenant people.
Rev. Kyle Lockhart, Pastor of Teaching & Spiritual Formation