Psalm 73 - How to deal with worthless thinking

The Bible does not ask us to pretend. The Psalm starts with the declaration that God is good, but then admits that his foot had almost slipped. For it seemed that God was not good, and he envied the wicked. God is good, but our hearts are not pure. So what do we do when the impurity of our hearts becomes apparent? Pretend and put on a mask? That is the way of religion. The way of truth is to be honest with God. It is us who will have to change, but we are more likely to change if we are open and honest with God.

It seemed as though the wicked did indeed prosper, that life was better for the wicked. There seemed to be no justice.

So the Psalmist thought that all his attempts to follow God were a waste of time. If you have thought "what is the point", you are not the first to do this.

So what did he do? He entered the sanctuary of God, and he kept his mouth shut! We cannot stop ourselves having worthless thoughts from time to time, but we can recognise when we are doing this and keep our mouth shut. Now this does not mean bottling things up or pretending, for the Psalmist told God. Go and tell God how you feel. Too often we tell everyone else except God. When we do this we can cause trouble, when we tell God we can be changed.

For when our hearts are grieved or embittered (verse 21) our thinking becomes futile.

So the Psalmist went to God and received counsel from the Lord. The Lord restored and strengthened him.