READ Psalm 73:15–20. 15 If I had spoken out like that, I would have betrayed your children. 16 When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply 17 till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny. 18 Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. 19 How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! 20 They are like a dream when one awakes; when you arise, Lord, you will despise them as fantasies.
THE DREAM OF THE WORLD. The first step out of the sinkhole of resentment and envy is worship. The psalmist enters the sanctuary, and in the presence of the true God his sight clears and he begins to get the long-term perspective (verses 16–17). He realizes that the rich without God are on their way to being eternally poor; the celebrities without God are on their way to being endlessly ignored (verses 18–19). Within the confines of a dream, you may be very intimidated by some powerful being, but as soon as you wake, you laugh at its impotence to harm your real life. All the world’s power and wealth are like a dream. They can neither enhance nor ruin a Christian’s deepest identity, happiness, and inheritance.
Prayer: Lord, I praise you for being more real than the mountains, and in you I am richer than if I had all the jewels that lie beneath the earth. In my eyes, by your Spirit’s power, let “the things of the world grow strangely dim in the light of your glory and grace.”66 Amen.