“Man being in honor hath no understanding: he is like unto the beasts that perish” (Ps. 49:20)

I wonder how well you know the Psalms? Do they trip off your tongue? Do you find yourself humming them when you’re on your own? The Church has treasured them as part of her great Hebrew inheritance. Indeed, they are a golden thread that unites Temple Worship to the Liturgy bestowed on us by Christ. But have you noticed that they are frequently very earthy, very straightforward, when dealing with man and his ways?

Ps. 49 is a perfect example. The psalmist encourages the hearer to listen in, and he describes in a classic example of Jewish wit how success can cloud our judgment – deceiving us into thinking we truly are as good as people say we are:

“while he lived, he counted himself an happy man; and so long as thou doest well unto thyself, men will speak good of thee.”

God allows for inequality in this life – in fact, inequality is what motivates change and growth, so it is more than passive permission on the part of the Divine Will. We are not made equal in gifts, intelligence or looks, nor do we have the same temperaments or characters. Indeed, it would be terribly boring if we did.

For some, the pathway of growth and change may appear linear and respectable; for others, life is somewhat messy, even dramatic. But a surefire way to feel depressed and demoralized is to compare your life with others. Instead, God asks you to run your own race. It might not be pretty, or satisfying, and ‘men may not speak good of thee,’ but one quality unifies all of our life experiences: we matter to God; each of us – individually; and the meaning of our trials and tribulations is found in the extent to which they conform us to Christ, which is our task in this life, in order to live in Him in the next.