Psalm 73:21-26 
“Then I realized that my heart was bitter, 
and I was all torn up inside. 
I was so foolish and ignorant— 
I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you. 
Yet I still belong to you; 
you hold my right hand. 
You guide me with your counsel, 
leading me to a glorious destiny. 
Whom have I in heaven but you? 
I desire you more than anything on earth. 
My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, 
but God remains the strength of my heart; 
he is mine forever.” (NLT)

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God loves us even when we are a mess. He holds onto us in our messiness. He leads us out of our messes.

This is good news. 

There are a whole lotta people who don’t want any part of our messiness. They prefer happy people or people who are irritated by the same things that irritate them. Sometimes, it seems like we have to pay a professional to listen to our problems because nobody else has time for that.

The anonymous psalmist here describes his mess. I’m assuming here that the writer was a man. It could have been a woman, I suppose. However, I do not want to write “his or her” repeatedly. And I don’t care how contemporary and cool it is to say “their” when talking about a single person; I’m not doing that. So now that I have created a mess of my own, and have risked losing your attention, let me get back to the story,

His mess is a mess we are all familiar with, all of us, men and women. Bitterness has crept into our hearts because of the injustice we see going undisciplined and unpunished. This bitterness led to a constant state of anxiety. Other people’s problems often do this to us, don’t they? But since they’re other people’s problems, why do we let them get to us the way they do?

Upon reflection, the songwriter addresses this with these words: “I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you.”

Someone may have told you at one time or another how you are as dumb as a post. That was the psalmist’s confession to God. He (or she) was trying to play God, a role he, or you know, was completely inadequate to fill. Realizing this, he also realized he was not the boss of him, her, or them. He, she, or they all would answer to God, just like the writer himself, herself, or their self, or whatever. 

God really doesn’t require my help judging others in my heart, thereby alerting him to their wayward ways. This realization turns my critical examination of others back on myself. As it turns out, I have a few flaws on my own. It also occurs to me that if I want God to set them straight, would he also set me straight using the same standard? 

See what I mean? The writer was a mess. And so are we. 

Here’s the good part: God knows our messiness and loves us anyway. He knows our messiness, loves us anyway, and loves us too much to leave us this way. Take a good look at what the poet said next. 

Yet I still belong to you; 
you hold my right hand. 
You guide me with your counsel, 
leading me to a glorious destiny.

God does not disown me in my messiness. God holds onto me when I am at risk of losing my grip on him. God gives me wise counsel to broaden my understanding of his plan and purpose for others, which is wrapped in as much love as his plan and purpose for me. When we let him take the lead, the result is always glorious. 

This world is a mess.

Other people are messy. 

I am a whole category of mess all by myself.

God loves messy people and rescues us from our messes.

God’s purpose for all of our lives is glorious. 

These thoughts might come in handy today. And if not today, then certainly soon and repeatedly. 

—

I will confess my messiness to God and follow his leadership into a glorious alternative.

—

Our Father, I am a mess. In my messiness, I see the messiness of others more clearly than my own. Thank you for not discarding me or others in our messiness. Thank you for leading us from where we are to where we belong. Where you lead is gloriously good and desperately needed. Amen.