Stop. Think. Confess.

I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you.

Psalm 73:22

Asaph’s story tells us how God brought this man through a crisis of faith by taking him through a number of turns.

The first thing Asaph discovered was that he needed to STOP. “If I had gone where my thoughts were leading me at that time, I would have let everybody down” (see Psa. 73:15). He made a decision to stop. He refused to follow where his discouraged mind was leading him. The first step to turning your life around is not finding an answer but making a decision.

The second thing Asaph had to do was to THINK. Asaph says, “When I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end” (73:16-17). I went to the sanctuary. I remembered God’s truth. I met with God’s people. And I considered the ultimate outcome of the wicked and the righteous. That turned me around. It gave me a whole new perspective.

God straightens out our confused thinking as we worship Him, remember His truth, meet with His people, and consider the ultimate outcome of life.

The next step was for Asaph to CONFESS. “I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you” (73:22). Our friend, Asaph, was confessing to his own foolishness. He was admitting to God the things that were wrong in his life.

Think about the steps that God led Asaph through in order to turn him around and put him on the right path again. If you are struggling through a crisis yourself, can you identify where you think you might be in these steps?