In Psalm 73, Asaph writes about things that confuse him about this life. Specifically, he complains about how wicked people seem to get away with their wickedness and are even rewarded for it. While he has tried to be a devoted follower of God, it has not gotten him anything good. In fact, he has experienced hardship and ridicule for it. This can’t be fair…

Until he went to the worship service!

This helped him because he didn’t need a change of circumstances; he needed a change of perspective. He makes two observations about this shift in perspective. The first is that he went to worship to try to understand these confusing matters. The second is that worship helped him see the big picture more clearly and resolved his troubles. Both things are true about corporate worship when we enter it, as Asaph describes it.

I can think of many places in my life when I was confused about something in my life. I had a challenging decision to make or a difficult job to complete. Or I had a significant marriage or parenting issue that I needed wisdom for, or could not figure out. Sometimes, these matters are helped by speaking to someone who has biblical wisdom and can show us how the Bible applies to our circumstances. There is safety in a multitude of counselors (Proverbs 11:14), but sometimes, it takes an audience of the Most High God and the environment of corporate worship to bring ultimate clarity.

I can think of 5 ways that worship changes our perspective, which sometimes is better than changing our circumstances.

• Going to a worship service provides a powerful opportunity to humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. The very act of getting up, getting dressed, and driving to the place of gathered worship is an act of submission. It is an expression of surrendering to the Lordship of Christ with our schedule and time. While we can have many reasons for going to worship, the most noble of these is as an act of reverence (Hebrews 10:24–25).
• Participating in worship is an intentional act of aligning our minds with truth. When we hear the word read and preached and respond to it by praying and singing God’s truth back to him and to one another, we are teaching our minds to think truth. We are taking false thoughts captive that we have been believing all week and making them obedient to Jesus’ truth. While we can do these things in vain, the authentic effort of participating in worship transforms our lives and renews our minds (2 Corinthians 10:5; Romans 12:1–2).
• Sitting under the gospel’s themes in corporate worship reminds us that we are sinners in need of mercy, and we have found it in Christ. We bring sinful thoughts and actions with us into corporate worship, but this reality is arrested by the truth of what God has commanded that we have rejected and what Christ has done for us. While we can be hypocrites by judging others, if we are honest, we will recognize that we are the worst sinners we know and we have been gloriously forgiven (1 John 1:9).
• Rehearsing the liturgy of worship always reminds us of an eternal perspective on this life. The nature of the kingdom of God is that it is being built for an ultimate consummation. One day, this life will end, and the things done in this life will be judged equitably. The wicked will receive their just sentence if they have not repented. We bring temporal problems into worship, but we leave with eternal solutions (Hebrews 9:27).
• When we leave worship, our faith should be stronger to face the inequities of this life. We should not be surprised that a fallen world would be filled with injustice. But God reminds us that he is still in control of all things, and he uses even these injustices to accomplish his plans for the world. He even uses them for good in our lives, which is truly incredible (Exodus 50:20).

When Asaph went into worship in a state of frustrated confusion, he probably wanted to accuse God of wrongdoing. But once in worship, he was reminded that God was still in control of all things and that he would always do what was just and right. He would judge the wicked, and their recompense would be far more extreme than any apparent gains they had “earned” in this life. And we would receive an eternal reward that would far outweigh any suffering we have experienced.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God (Romans 8:18-19).

So, when you are confused about your life and can’t figure out what is going on, go to the sanctuary of God and see things more clearly.