“Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:25-26
One of the things I love about the Bible is its honesty. The human authors of God’s Word are at times brutally honest about their struggles, their frustrations, their sins, and even their doubts. They refuse to paint an idealistic picture of our emotional and spiritual struggles. This is especially true in the Psalms. The Psalms peel back the veneer we tend to keep on our spiritual struggles. They reveal the thoughts that we would prefer to hide in dark corners of our heart. And, therefore, they give us permission to let those hidden doubts come to the surface so that God’s truth might expose them for the lies that they are. Psalm 73 follows this pattern and pulls back the curtain on our jealously of the wicked.
The Psalm begins in verse 1 with an honest admission from Asaph. He says that he almost stumbled and slipped because he was envious of the arrogant and the prosperity of the wicked. Then, for 15 verses, he spills out his heart about God’s apparent injustice, allowing the wicked to prosper while his own people suffer. In his brutal honesty, he even says that his striving after obedience and purity has been a waste of time because he is worse off than the wicked he observes every day.
Without question, Asaph is simply sharing a common experience of those who seek to be faithful to God. If we’re being honest, we think these very same thoughts at times. Why can’t our life be as easy and prosperous as the rich and famous? Why do those who are indifferent to God or deny him all together live in splendor, while so many Christians struggle to make it day to day? These are the questions Asaph then holds up to God’s truth. Once we are honest enough to speak them, we can expose them for the lies that they really are.
So, in verses 16-26 Asaph reminds himself that the prosperity of the wicked is a cruel illusion in a broken and distorted world. Only through broken spectacles do the arrogant seem to prosper. When we view them through lens of truth, verses 18-19 reveal that the wicked are set by God in slippery places, will fall into ruin, and will be destroyed. Verse 27 reminds us that those who are far from God will perish. With that truth in hand, their seeming prosperity is shown to be nothing more than fool’s gold. It will be worthless in eternity and, in the end, also the cause of their destruction.
Into this struggle, the glorious words of verses 25-26 sustain us in the midst of our struggles of jealousy and envy. In the end, God will be enough for us. He is the only one who can bring ultimate satisfaction to our hearts. If he’s enough into eternity, then he’s enough right now. There is nothing on earth worth desiring, worth giving ourselves to, but God alone. We need not envy the well-being of the wicked, we have the living God and they don’t.
Even when our heart stops beating and our flesh comes to an end, God continues to be the strength of our heart and our portion for all eternity. He’s the only treasure that will never fail and will never end. Not even death itself can keep us from his kindness, mercy, and the treasure of his presence.