Almost Slipped: What to Do When You're Envying Someone Else's Life
It is easy to look around and wonder why people who seem to want nothing to do with God appear to be thriving while you are struggling. Psalm 73 puts words to that feeling and shows us what to do when our focus drifts in the wrong direction.
Who Was Asaph and Why Does His Story Matter?
Psalm 73 was written by a man named Asaph. He was a Levite who was deeply involved in the worship life of Israel. He was connected with the musicians David appointed to lead worship, and his family continued serving in that ministry for generations.
Asaph was not a stranger to God. He knew the Scriptures. He worshiped God and helped other people worship God as well. And yet Asaph is incredibly honest about a season when his own faith was shaken.
He looked at what was happening around him and what he saw did not match what he knew about God. He watched the wicked prosper. He watched arrogant people succeed. And meanwhile, his own life seemed to be getting harder.
Eventually, Asaph began asking a question that believers can still find themselves asking today: if God is good, why does it seem like people who want nothing to do with Him are doing better than I am?
What We See Can Distort What We Know
Psalm 73 opens with a declaration of faith. "Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart." (Psalm 73:1, ESV). Asaph stands firmly on that truth. But then verse two brings us into the real substance of the psalm.
"But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped." (Psalm 73:2, ESV). He is describing how unstable his faith had become. He had not completely walked away from God, but he had walked away far enough to look back and say He almost fell.
Verse three tells us exactly what happened. "For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." (Psalm 73:3, ESV). The problem is right there in those two words: when I saw.
Your focus is limited to where your eyes are pointed. God had not stopped being good, but Asaph turned His attention away from what he knew about God and became fixated on what He saw in the lives of the wicked. The more he focused on them, the more the goodness of God began falling out of focus.
What Did Asaph See That Troubled Him So Much?
Asaph describes the wicked in vivid detail. They have no struggles until death. Their bodies are healthy. They are not in trouble like others are. Pride is their necklace. Violence covers them like clothing. They speak as if no one is above them, not even God.
And then verse ten shows something else. Their prosperity had become their influence. People were turning to them and finding no fault in them. How true is that today? When someone appears prosperous, we assume they have life figured out. We start listening to what they have to say, not because they are wise, but because we think their bank account or their lifestyle is proof that they are doing something right.
How Envy and Comparison Damage Your Faith
Asaph took all of that information and turned it inward. He stopped looking at them and started comparing their prosperity to his own life. Verse thirteen captures the result. "All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence." (Psalm 73:13, ESV).
He is saying that maybe following God has not been worth it. Maybe everything he has done has been pointless.
Envy and comparison are dangerous because if we let them go far enough, they will make us start resenting the obedience God has called us to. We look at someone who seems to be getting ahead while ignoring God, and suddenly the sacrifices we have made to follow Him begin to feel foolish.
Why did I do the right thing if they compromise all the time and seem to be making out just fine? Why am I tithing and struggling financially when they have not given a cent to the Lord and they are drowning in money?
That is exactly where Asaph's mind was. He had compared their prosperity with his struggle for so long that he started measuring the value of faithfulness by what it had produced for him. That is a very dangerous way to value obedience.
Asaph was not alone in this. Jeremiah wrestled with the same thing. "Righteous are you, O Lord, when I complain to you; yet I would plead my case before you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper?" (Jeremiah 12:1, ESV). Jeremiah knew God was righteous. Asaph knew God was good. Neither of them stopped believing what they knew. They were simply trying to understand what they were seeing around them.
What Changed Everything for Asaph
Verse seventeen is the turning point of the entire psalm. "Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end." (Psalm 73:17, ESV).
The text does not tell us exactly what happened in the sanctuary. Maybe he heard the word of God preached. Maybe he participated in corporate worship. Maybe simply being in the house of God and surrounded by His people caused His perspective to shift. Whatever happened, when Asaph turned his attention back toward God, he suddenly saw something He had not considered before. He saw where the road for the wicked eventually ends.
God's Presence Restores Our Perspective
Back in verses four through twelve, the wicked looked completely secure. Healthy, wealthy, and influential. But verses eighteen and nineteen show that Asaph had made a calculated mistake. He had mistaken their prosperity for their security.
"Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors!" (Psalm 73:18-19, ESV).
That is a complete contrast to verse twelve, which described them as always at ease and increasing in riches. Someone who appeared to be thriving is destroyed in a moment.
This is an important warning. Just because someone's life appears to be going well does not mean they are standing in a good place with God. We cannot measure the condition of someone's soul by the condition of their bank account, their health, or how easy their life seems to be.
Asaph also had to reckon with what his envy had done to him personally. He admits in verses twenty-one and twenty-two that his soul had become bitter and that he had been acting like a beast toward God. His envy of other people had eventually affected the way he was relating to the Lord.
God Is Better Than What We Envy
Then verse twenty-three begins with one of the most encouraging words in the entire psalm. "Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand." (Psalm 73:23, ESV).
In spite of all of it, God was still there. Asaph had almost stumbled, but he had not fallen all the way down. His right hand was being held by God the entire time. God was holding Asaph up through the whole struggle. What Asaph thought was a story about how close he came to falling turned out to be a story about the grace of God that kept Him from falling.
Verse twenty-five captures the full transformation. "Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you." (Psalm 73:25, ESV). Back in verse three, Asaph was consumed with what everybody else had. Now he is asking what could possibly be better than God.
He had discovered that the life he was envying was never worth it in the first place. Verse twenty-six puts it plainly. "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." (Psalm 73:26, ESV). Everything he had envied had an expiration date. God does not.
Where the Psalm Ends and What It Means for Us
Verses twenty-seven and twenty-eight close with a contrast. Those who are far from God shall perish. But for Asaph, it is good to be near God. He has made the Lord His refuge.
Notice something important. Back in verse fifteen, Asaph was afraid to say anything because he knew his struggling could become someone else's stumbling block. But now he ends the psalm wanting to speak. He has a completely different message. He wants to tell everyone what God has done.
The wicked never had to become poor for Asaph to stop envying them. He just needed to see clearly what God already had for Him. And many of us need that same correction. We spend so much time looking at what somebody else has that we forget what God has placed right in front of us.
Life Application
Psalm 73 gives us three realities to carry with us. What we see can distort what we know. God's presence restores our perspective. And when our perspective is restored, we begin to understand that God is better than what we envy.
This week, pay attention to where your focus drifts. When you catch yourself measuring your life against someone else's, or questioning whether faithfulness to God has been worth it, take that as a signal to return to the sanctuary. Open your Bible. Gather with other believers. Bring your honest questions to God rather than letting them fester into bitterness.
You do not need God to give you somebody else's life. You just need God.
Ask yourself these questions as you go into the week ahead:
Is there someone in my life whose prosperity I have been envying, and has that envy begun to affect how I relate to God?
Have I started treating my obedience to God like a contract, expecting certain results in return for my faithfulness?
When was the last time I intentionally placed myself in God's presence, through worship, Scripture, or community, and allowed my perspective to be corrected?
What has God already placed in front of me that I may be overlooking because I am too focused on what someone else has?
Asaph almost slipped. But he did not fall, because God was holding His right hand the entire time. That same God is holding yours.