Psalm 73:1-5 “Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from common human burdens; they are not plagued by human ills.” Today's episode talks about how easy it is to envy those who appear to have it all. How easy it is to get off course when we take our eyes of God and start focusing on all that is around us. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
I Had Nearly Lost My Foothold
Psalm 73:1-5 “Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from common human burdens; they are not plagued by human ills.”
This Psalm came up in prayer group yesterday. Not these verses, but when I read the whole Psalm these verses stood out to me because they talk about something that is so easy to do. This whole Psalm is talking about a person who is good and upright and loves the Lord, and lives accordingly. However, He says here in these verses that he almost slipped. He almost lost his foothold. He said he envied the arrogant when he saw the prosperity of the wicked. Have you ever done this before? Have you ever envied someone you knew, or knew of, and yet they were not known to be a very nice person? You didn’t envy them because they weren’t a nice person, but you envied them for all they had?
Did you ever notice how sometimes it can seem like some things always go right for some people? It seems as though they always get what they want. Everything just seems to work out of them and they never seem to have a difficult time and yet, they are not a good person. Meanwhile, you are following God’s laws, you are doing all the things you should be doing, you are kind, you are loving, and yet it seems like you just can’t get ahead. I get it. This is something I don’t understand as well. It’s so frustrating.
Tony had a boss one time and she was a nightmare. She would always yell at him, and say unkind things to him. Then she would ask him to do things, like come over and mow her lawn. He didn’t want to and yet he didn’t feel as though he could say no as she was his boss. She was very unkind to all those who worked for her and yet she was very kind to all those who she worked for. He hated to go to work and would dread work every single Monday. Luckily in the military people move around a lot so she was only his boss for a year or so. However, Tony was not the only person she treated like this. She was not a nice person to those who worked for her and yet she seemed to keep getting promoted. It made no sense to those who had worked for her in the past. It didn’t seem fair.
When you see people who are mean, unkind, or even people who are doing illegal things get ahead it can feel very discouraging. It can seem so unfair. I know people who love the Lord, who do everything they possibly could for the Lord, they are the kindest, most gentle people in the world and yet they have so much that goes wrong in their lives. They can’t seem to pay their bills, or their loved ones are terminally ill, or whatever else is going on. It doesn’t seem to make sense. I can see how the person writing this Psalm could have almost slipped. I can see how he could have lost his foothold. The enemy is good. He knows just what to show us to make us jealous or envious. This is especially true with social media. The enemy will use it to prey on your weaknesses.
For instance, if you are wanting to buy a house but just can’t at the moment, you will see people who have just bought a house in your social media feed. If you are waiting to get married you will see posts from friends who just got engaged. If you want to have a baby you will see posts of those who just had a baby. The enemy makes sure you see these posts and then starts to whisper in your ear. He whispers things like, “Why them, and not you?” “Look how happy they are, you will never be that happy.” “It’s never going to happen for you.” and so on. The devil wants you to be envious because envy is a sin and it gets in the way of our relationship with God. When we are looking at all we don’t have, and we are all guilty of this, we are taking our eyes off God. When I say we all do this, I mean we all do it. For some it might not be the things I listed, but have you ever thought, “I wish I had his/her hair,” “I wish I had his/her patience,” “I wish I prayed like him/her,” “I wish I could do that too,” or anything like that. Or maybe it is more material things, “I wish I had that car,” “I wish I had that job,” “I wish I had those clothes.” Whatever it is, I think I can safely say we have all been envious of something at some point in our lives. This opens a door for the enemy to come in and whisper all sorts of lies to us.
The next things this verse says is, “ They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from common human burdens; they are not plagued by human ills.” It definitely seems like this is true sometimes. It seems like those we know and love are struggling, some people seem to always be sick. I know three ladies specifically in my mentoring group who are wonderful people. They would give their shirt off their back if someone needed it and yet they are chronically ill. I also know plenty of people who are not kind, are down right mean and unkind, and yet they never seem to get sick. Why is that? Sickness is not a punishment from God, it is not the result of sin. Jesus addressed this in the Bible when He was asked “Who sinned, this man or his parents that he would be born blind.” Jesus answered, in John 9:3, ”Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”
I think an important thing to remember also is that we don’t always know someone’s full story, this is true even for our loved ones. Our loved ones may be struggling and they don’t want to talk about it because they don’t want us to worry, or they don’t want to bother us. Or maybe they have told us, but we still don’t really know what they are going through because we have never been through it before. It may seem to us like the people who are arrogant have everything going for them. On the outside it can seem as though their life is perfect and they have all they could ever want. However, often times they don’t have what they really want. Yes, they have money, but that doesn’t make them happy, at least not forever. Many times the money gets in the way of healthy relationships. Many times once they make a bunch of money they aren’t sure what to do after that. There is a lot of mental health issues like depression and anxiety for even the arrogant. We just don’t see it because the enemy is really good at pointing our all the good that we are missing out on.
The verse above starts out, “Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.” God is good to those who follow Him. Keep doing what you know is right, even when it might not make sense to you. Even when others may think you are crazy. Don’t listen when people say, it’s ok to tell this small white lie to get ahead in business, it’s ok to do this one small thing that is illegal, it’s ok to not follow this law God has set out as it’s a small one anyway. God is looking out for us. God never promised us that life would be easy if He followed Him. Actually He told us it wouldn’t. He told us we would struggle and yet He did promise He would be there with us every step of the way. He will give us the strength we need to get through anything that comes our way. I know it seems tempting when we see people who have it all, even if they are awful people, to want what they have. When you find yourself envying those people who earned all they have in a worldly way, instead of a Godly way I want you to remember that this world is relatively short compared to eternity. Would you rather have everything go great in this world, live like a king/queen while hear on earth, gaining all you want any way you want, but they spend eternity separated from the Father, or would you rather suffer here on earth and then spend eternity in heaven with our heavenly Father?
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we are sorry we can sometimes envy those who do not follow your ways. We are sorry we almost slip sometimes, and we are sorry when we actually do slip. Lord, we love you and we want to only follow you help us stay on track. Open our spiritual eyes to the enemy and all his tricks. Help us to see his plan and help us to not fall for it. Help us to keep our eyes on you! Help us to remember you are always with us and help us to turn to you and talk with you when things seem hard. We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jeusus’ powerful name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I wanted to let you know about this new audio training I created. It is about how to invite Jesus into your everyday. Often times we want to pray, we want to spend time with Jesus, and yet we just aren’t finding the time to do so. In this audio training I will teach you to invite Jesus into 3 of the most common tasks we do each day. If you want to hear this audio training all you need to do is go to my website walkboldlywithjesus.com or you can click on the link below. It will take you to a page where you can put in your name and email and the audio training will be delivered right to your inbox. I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to reach out to me and let me know what you think of it. I look forward to meeting you hear again on Monday. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed weekend!