The Portion Who Holds Your Hand
Psalm 73:21-28
Read Psalm 73:21-28 in your own Bible first. Psalm 73 opens the third section of the Psalms and is credited to Asaph, a worship leader in Israel. He starts by envying proud, comfortable people (vv. 2-3), then walks into God's sanctuary (v. 17) and sees things differently. These closing verses are where he says what he found.
Asaph is honest about himself here. In verses 21-22 he admits his heart was bitter, and he calls himself senseless, like an animal standing in front of God. Nothing outside him has been fixed yet. The psalm never says his circumstances changed. What changed is where he stands. Verses 23-24 say he is continually with God, held by the right hand and guided. Then comes the question in verse 25: who does he have in heaven but God? On earth, he desires nothing besides Him. A man who nearly slipped over someone else's comfort ends by saying the Lord is enough.
Read it beside John 6. The crowd wanted the loaves, and Asaph wanted what the proud had. Both were staring at the sign. In verse 26, Asaph says his flesh and heart may fail, but God is his strength and his portion. A portion is what you are given to live on. In John 6:35, Jesus says He is the bread of life and that the one who comes to Him will not hunger. He is not pointing at the portion. He is the portion. And the hand that holds Asaph in verse 23 is the one Jesus speaks of in John 10:28, from which no one snatches His own. Asaph had to walk into a sanctuary to see God. We are given the Person Himself.
Start where Asaph started. Say the bitter thing out loud to God, and don't tidy it up first. Then ask what you have been staring at instead of Him. It might be a comparison, a number in the account, or an answer you are still waiting on. Take that exact thing to Jesus and ask Him to be nearer than it. This does not promise you will get it, or that the ache will go. Verse 26 assumes the body and the heart can fail, and says God is still enough. Then the small gifts of the day, a good morning or a hug, become signs you look through to Him. Verse 28 says it is good to be near God. Nearness is not the prize for something else. It is the good.
Where his own words touch this
Mark named Psalm 73 in his John 6 sermon, "Presence or Provision." He set Whom have I in heaven but you at one end of the Bible and taste and see at the other, and said provision is meant to point to the Provider. He also asked people to follow their comfort down to where it attaches to the soul and invite Jesus into that exact place. He did not preach Asaph's envy and bitterness in what we have, so tying them to this passage is where his convictions would have taken him.
Sit with it
- 1What is one thing you have been looking at lately, instead of at Jesus? Write down what it is and what you hope it will give you.
- 2Asaph told God the ugly thing about his own heart. What would you say to God today if you did not tidy it up first?
- 3Verse 28 says it is good to be near God. Where in today did you notice Him, and where did you only read the sign?
Pray it
Abba, I have been staring at the sign again.
I am sorry. You are the canyon, and You are right here.
Hold my hand, Jesus. Be enough for me today.
That Mark cited Psalm 73 and Psalm 34:8 as bookends of John 6, and taught that provision points to the Provider, is documented; applying Asaph's envy and his sanctuary turning point to the reader is careful inference from those convictions.