I love Psalm 73.
This Psalm brings me tremendous comfort.
If you do not remember the Psalm, please read it here below:
1Truly God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
2But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
3For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4For they have no pangs until death;
their bodies are fat and sleek.
5They are not in trouble as others are;
they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.
6Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.
7Their eyes swell out through fatness;
their hearts overflow with follies.
8They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.
9They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.
10Therefore his people turn back to them,
and find no fault in them.a
11And they say, “How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?”
12Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches.
13All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
14For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.
15If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
16But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,
17until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.
18Truly you set them in slippery places;
you make them fall to ruin.
19How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!
20Like a dream when one awakes,
O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.
21When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
22I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.
23Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
24You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
25Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strengthb of my heart and my portion forever.
27For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
28But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.
There have been many times my client going through a divorce has expressed "the wicked prosper Laura!"
When a judge rules in favor of the man who allows his kid to look at porn. The wicked prosper.
When a child is backslidden and does not care about God and recently gets a promotion at work. The wicked prosper.
When the man who cheated on your dear friend at church, just gets married to a woman 15 years younger, and returns from a honeymoon in Mexico (something your friend always wanted to do). The wicked prosper.
When your child is disabled and the neighbors' have a child but they are gay and that child is healthy happy and doing great, while you are sitting in yet another doctor's visit, school nurse's office or IEP meeting. The wicked prosper.
The friend you knew who wasn't really close to the LORD but does go to church every other year, is now holding her second grandbaby, dressed super cute, no wrinkles or problems on her facebook posts and has just returned from a Bahamas trip.
The not quite sure if she is saved girl prospers.
The LORD really convicted me the other day.
If you frown at the sinner's photo, because he or she is having fun, and you are suffering, the problem is not with them, the problem is with YOU Laura.
Ouch.
Why?
We are not to covet another sinner's instagram post.
Instagram, facebook and all the others...they create an environment of longing. People do not post or boast about the fact that a husband cheats on his wife, and the wife forgives but the kids are now tremendously messed up and doubting the existence of God the Creator.
People do not share about the uncle who is in jail.
People do not share about the cousin who died of a drug overdose.
People do not open up about sexual or physical abuse in childhood.
People do not discuss how hurt they are from the "cliques" at their old church.
People do not share ANY of these things.
But the wicked....oh! The wicked post their lives all night long (Please sing Lionel Ritchie!)
The wicked posts of themselves drinking wine, or smoking pot or dating the hottest girl in school.
My daughter showed a post of a young girl in her bikini on a Southern California beach (her momma had cancer!) and she looked naked (yes! Naked).
You can wake up early, get the coffee brewing, open up your Bible, and be filled with gratitude, tears and ready to handle the day...
Then, you open instagram or facebook and you suddenly get the "oh man! It's is not fair LORD! The wicked prosper!" blues.
This ailment is really contagious in the summer!
The little teen girls wish they had a God-fearing boyfriend. Instead, they see photos of the pretty girl at school dating the boy and the rumor mill goes...they are probably sleeping together.
The LORD really rebuked me that to frown on a person's post is one thing, but to get upset and think "Hey! It's not fair! Johnny and Jenny do not love God, they do not go to church, and yet their kids are doing great, attending great schools and they are enjoying a wonderful Yosemite vacation, while I am at home cleaning the crumbs off the toaster, trying to do everything to stay cool in triple digits and serving the LORD." We can easily repeat the Psalmist words in verse 3 here:
For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
Yeah, so what! Sometimes the wicked do prosper! We must remember Job, Joseph and of course our LORD Jesus.
Jesus did not prosper (in the world's eyes)
Jesus never travelled abroad. He never published a book or ate fancy meals and fancy restaurants. But Jesus DID have a lot of followers. However, many of them were not genuine. In fact, just like a person who is labelled a criminal "all forsook him and fled" the only one who stuck around was his mother Mary and few other "women."
We do not say "poor Jesus!" It is just not fair that the wicked prosper, and Jesus died.
No. We look at Jesus and gain the proper perspective.
The wicked DO NOT prosper in heaven. The wicked burn in hell eternally separated from God and all His beauty, and glory and holiness.
The wicked enjoy dainties here, but will experience unquenchable fire then.
It is not worth it.
If social media causes you to get the Psalm 73 blues, turn it off, shut it off and open your Bible (or Bible ap) instead.
When others sin, we should not envy.
Sin grieves the heart of God.
Sin should grieve our heart too.
God does allow His grace to fall on the just and the unjust.
And in fact, it is Good and Right that He does this. For at one time we were sinners dying in our sins until the Holy Spirit took the veil off our scaly eyes.
Thank you Jesus!
I pray we can daily think on Psalm 73. This is a very important Psalm to me personally being an autism mom.
I have this portion tucked in my memory bank
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Christ is enough.
If you or I have a longing for something....if God says no, we must learn to be content.
We must not covet the sinner's instagram post. We must not covet. We must learn to pray!
