Journal

Please use one of the prompts below to get your journaling started.

• Explore your fears and what’s behind them.
• Write about a relational conflict you are experiencing.
• List out all that you are grateful for.
• Recall a significant reaction, conversation or event.

Bible Text

Psalm 73 (ESV)

A Psalm of Asaph.

¹ Truly God is good to Israel,

    to those who are pure in heart.

² But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,

    my steps had nearly slipped.

³ For I was envious of the arrogant

    when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

⁴ For they have no pangs until death;

    their bodies are fat and sleek.

⁵ They are not in trouble as others are;

    they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.

⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace;

    violence covers them as a garment.

⁷ Their eyes swell out through fatness;

    their hearts overflow with follies.

⁸ They scoff and speak with malice;

    loftily they threaten oppression.

⁹ They set their mouths against the heavens,

    and their tongue struts through the earth.

¹⁰ Therefore his people turn back to them,

    and find no fault in them.

¹¹ And they say, “How can God know?

    Is there knowledge in the Most High?”

¹² Behold, these are the wicked;

    always at ease, they increase in riches.

¹³ All in vain have I kept my heart clean

    and washed my hands in innocence.

¹⁴ For all the day long I have been stricken

    and rebuked every morning.

¹⁵ If I had said, “I will speak thus,”

    I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

¹⁶ But when I thought how to understand this,

    it seemed to me a wearisome task,

¹⁷ until I went into the sanctuary of God;

    then I discerned their end.

¹⁸ Truly you set them in slippery places;

    you make them fall to ruin.

¹⁹ How they are destroyed in a moment,

    swept away utterly by terrors!

²⁰ Like a dream when one awakes,

    O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as  

    phantoms.

²¹ When my soul was embittered,

    when I was pricked in heart,

²² I was brutish and ignorant;

    I was like a beast toward you.

²³ Nevertheless, I am continually with you;

    you hold my right hand.

²⁴ You guide me with your counsel,

    and afterward you will receive me to glory.

²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you?

    And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,

    but God is the strength of my heart and my portion  

    forever.

²⁷ For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;

    you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.

²⁸ But for me it is good to be near God;

I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.

How is God addressing me today?

•       What is the theme of this passage in one sentence?

•       Write out some key verses from this passage.

•       How is God speaking to me through this passage? What are some lessons or applications for my life?

Prayer