Life pushes us in unpleasant directions. Living a life of faithfulness to God can become a challenge in the face of immense pressures to conform to modern culture and a godless lifestyle. We certainly don’t have the strength within us to push back. Scripture challenges us to keep Christ and his kingdom as the top priorities in our lives, but we have bills to pay, a mortgage to keep, a boss to please, a family to raise, and temptations to face. One of the best antidotes for the venom that threatens to paralyze my own spiritual life has been Psalm 73 , one of the handful of “wisdom” psalms found in our collection of 150. Asaph, listed as the psalm’s author in the heading, reminds us of one simple fact: God is good. Nothing else is good as God. The psalm opens and closes with this truth, which then frames the entire discussion of pressures in life that are not so good. The opening verse of the psalm says " God is good to Israel ," God’s people. The last verse, verse 28, con