What We Actually Want

READ

There's a version of this psalm that almost didn't make it into Scripture the way we know it. In the first half of Psalm 73, Asaph spirals—watching people who don't care about God get richer, healthier, and more comfortable than he is, despite his own faithfulness. He says, "My feet had almost slipped." This isn't a psalm written from a mountaintop. It's written from the edge of giving up. But something happens when Asaph goes into God's presence, and by the time we reach today's verses, he's landed somewhere none of us would have predicted from where he started.

Read Psalm 73:25–26 and see where he ends up.

Whom have I in heaven but you?
    And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength of my heart
    and my portion forever.

REFLECT

Here's a question worth asking honestly: if you stripped away every distraction, every scroll session, every ambition you're chasing right now — what's actually left underneath? What do you want, once you get past the socially acceptable answers?

Asaph goes there. "Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you." Coming from a man who spent the first half of this poem eaten alive by envy, that's not a small shift. It's the kind of line you only arrive at after admitting the truth about what you'd been chasing and finding it hollow.

We rarely do this kind of excavation. Most days, we spend our time pursuing things one layer below what we actually want. We want the promotion, but underneath that we want to matter. We want the relationship, but underneath that we want to be known and not left. We want the applause, the security, the healthy body, the full bank account—and underneath every one of those is a deeper ache that the surface-level thing was never built to satisfy.

Asaph names that ache directly, then does something braver: he tells us where it leads when God doesn't satisfy it. "My flesh and my heart may fail." No spin. His body will weaken. His emotions will let him down. He's not writing this from a place of naive optimism — he's writing it having just watched his own heart nearly give out over envy a few verses earlier.

And still — "God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Not a temporary fix. Not motivation for the afternoon. A portion. An inheritance. Something that doesn't run out when the body does, when the feelings do, when the circumstances turn.

This is what it looks like when longing finally lands somewhere solid. Not because life gets easier. Asaph's enemies are still prospering after this psalm ends. His own body will still eventually fail him, the way every body does. But he's stopped mistaking the things around the ache for the thing that can actually fill it.

Maybe that's the real work this week — not resolving every want you have, but tracing it. Following the thread down past the immediate craving to what's actually being asked for. Chances are, whatever it is, it was pointing at something bigger than itself the whole time.

RESPOND

Take a moment to process what God might be leading you to do in light of what you read.

• If you traced your biggest current want down to what's underneath it, what would you find?

• Where has something you were counting on recently proven as unreliable as Asaph says his own flesh and heart are?

• What would change this week if you actually believed God was your "portion" — not a backup plan, but the real thing?

REST

Take a moment to rest in God’s presence and consider one thing you can take away from your time reading, then close your devotional experience by praying:

God, we bring You our real wants today, not the polished versions. Thank You for being patient with us while we figure out what we're actually chasing. When our bodies weaken and our hearts falter, be the strength underneath us. Help us stop settling for the things that were only ever meant to point toward You. Be our portion — today, and for however long we have left. Amen.