Jan 30 Daily Rhythm

Morning
Psalm 73:12-15

Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning. If I had said, “I will speak thus,’ I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

Listen to the honest struggle of the writer. Sometimes at church we don’t like to admit our struggles. This is the BIBLE! and the psalmist is saying he shouldn’t have bothered to be so good. He is saying “It’s not worth it!” Have you ever felt this way? Have you struggled to be honest with yourself, God and others? It’s time to stop.

Afternoon
Psalm 73:16-17

But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.

This is beautiful. The Psalmist is struggling with his choices and his life compared to the lives of the wicked around him. “It’s not fair!” “It’s unjust!” Then he goes in to worship and this changes everything. We need worship so badly because worship changes everything. It changes our perspectives because worshipping God lists our eyes away from ourselves and points them toward the one worth looking at.

Evening
Psalm 73:18-20

Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors! Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.

After the Psalmist worships God he begins to get a better perspective on the fate of the wicked and the shallow. Tonight remember. You are not your own. Yours is the victory in the parade led by Jesus Christ.