In Ps.73:16, Asaph describes the spiritual battle he was entrenched in and then further expands upon it in vv.21-22. He knew he was drawing horrible conclusions and it was causing him to grow bitter and lose clarity. Thus, he had major conflict in his soul. So in v.17, he turns to the only place he can go for spiritual insight. Thankfully his bitterness had not caused him to refuse to turn to God.
We have to admit the intensity of the battle that often occurs when our soul is conflicted and we have allowed our faith to drift. What I mean is that there is a fight of faith that consistently needs to happen in order to get from the disillusionment of v.16 to seeking God in v.17. Why’s that? It’s because our flesh tries to convince us it’s too risky to turn to God. How is it risky? For one, we know from past experience that obeying God can be costly and doesn’t always result in positive tangible results. Perhaps we feel like our trust in God has been betrayed. Of course, that is entirely based on faulty presuppositions that the Christian life is always going to produce what is most comfortable and pleasing to us.
Besides that risk, when we approach our Holy God, we will probably have to admit our own sin. This is risky because we may be in a pattern of coddling jealousy, unforgiveness and/or fears. And we may have found security in those things, so it feels like we have to give up too much to place ourselves fully into the care of the Lord. But we must do that by repenting, and finding God to be our refuge once again.