Daily Devotions

1 Where we are

Mdm Chandra is 57, and she is number 84 in the pharmacy queue on a Tuesday morning. Her husband's prescriptions since the stroke in January are in a clear plastic folder on her lap, arranged in the order the counter staff like them. Her son comes out in March. When the screen jumps from 78 to 79 she catches herself trying to remember the last thing she wanted for herself, and cannot. Underneath the folder and the queue number is a quieter belief she has never said to anyone: that she is the only thing holding this family together, and if she runs out, she has failed them both.

2 What the passage is doing

Asaph led singing at the temple, and Psalm 73 is his account of nearly walking away. He had watched people who cut corners live easily while he kept faith and got nothing but trouble, stricken every morning. He says his feet almost slipped. When he finally comes to God he does not report recovery. He says: my flesh and my heart are used up. That sentence was approved for public worship. Israel sang it. Being empty was never treated as a lapse in faith.

3 Taking it with you

So hear this where you are sitting. Your strength giving out is not the failure of your love, and it is not the moment your family stops being held. The verse does not say God gives you enough to keep being the one who holds everything. It says God himself is the strength of your heart and your portion — your share, what is set aside for you and cannot be spent. Jesus was emptied out too, thirsty on a cross, and he did not do it so you could hold on by yourself; he did it to hold you. You are not the last thing standing between your family and disaster. You never were.