As I walked across campus, I was rethinking whether this God I had come to know was worth following. I was questioning if I wanted to continue in a relationship with a God who rewarded great sacrifice and commitment with such injustice and pain. I was questioning the character and trustworthiness of God. I remember mumbling certain phrases to myself as I made that lonely walk to my dorm room. "I feel like an animal. I am so angry. Why do the people who don't walk with God get all the good stuff? And why, instead of getting what's good, do I get what's lousy? Why is life so unfair? Why, God, did You let this happen?"

I didn't grow up reading the Bible. I opened it for the first time when I was 18. As a new Christian at the age of 21, I had begun reading it regularly and trying to learn to hear God's voice through the pages. But I was totally unprepared for what I was about to experience.

When I got back to my dorm room, I opened my Bible to where I had been reading in the book of Psalms. I determined to give God three or four psalms to speak to me. If He didn't speak to me and help me make sense of this raw deal, I was going to quit the Christian life. If the commitment and sacrifice for God I gave equaled the raw deal I got, then Christianity wasn't worth it. I wouldn't worship a God who worked like that. (As a Christian who has matured and walked with God for many years now, I know this isn't the best way to go about hearing God speak through His Word.)

The first two psalms I read did nothing for me. But giving God His "third chance", I turned to Psalm 73 and had an encounter that has forever marked my life. I had no idea that the God of the universe could interact through His Word in such a personal and powerful way with a mere human being. As I read the psalm aloud, the Spirit of God brought thoughts and pictures to my mind of what had occurred that night and the words I'd said while walking across campus. Then He answered in His Word the very questions I had so angrily asked Him.

Reading Psalm 73 was like reading my biography. The psalmist had my same problem. The wicked he described acted just like my teammate, and talked about God in the same way. My efforts to remain pure also seemed in vain. And I had worried in the same way about how my quitting the faith would have impacted some of God's children - those I met with in Bible study, five of whom I had led to Christ.

As the psalmist began to get a little of God's perspective, so did I. I thought of all God had done for me. As my anger and hurt began to subside, I realized with the psalmist that God is my only real security in life. The Holy Spirit seemed to be dictating the psalm to me to help me in a way I had never imagined possible. God had heard my agony, and He spoke clearly. He reminded me of His sovereign power and His sovereign love. He gave me hope.

After studying Psalm 73 extensively, I see four major life lessons that flow from this psalm. There are four things God wants us to do in order to work through the raw deals we've experienced.