“But 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.” (Psalm 73:28, English Standard Version)

Have you ever felt envious of someone or something else? If not, you should take your pulse—right now! You’re probably dead. To be human is to see someone else with something (or someone) that you want.

You see this with very small children. No matter how many toys a small child has, he/she is likely to want the one toy they don’t have. And, of course, envy is not something we grow out of naturally. In fact, it seems to get worse as we get older. Speaking from the standpoint of an elderly man, I can tell you that old age doesn’t help. I envy the young their youth.

In Psalm 73, the psalmist begins with the words, “Truly God is good to Israel,

to those who are pure in heart.”

That sounds like an encouraging start! But immediately, the psalmist confesses how close he came to being anything but pure in heart. What was his big problem? Murder? Adultery? Stealing? No, he was envious of the wicked.

We might tend to think that envy is no big deal. It appears that God’s Word does not agree with our evaluation of envy. The medieval theologians were right when they described envy as one of the seven deadly sins.

The psalmist says,

2          But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,

                        my steps had nearly slipped.

3          For I was envious of the arrogant

                        when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

Psa. 73:4         For they have no pangs until death;

                        their bodies are fat and sleek.

5          They are not in trouble as others are;

                        they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.

6          Therefore pride is their necklace;

                        violence covers them as a garment.

7          Their eyes swell out through fatness;

                        their hearts overflow with follies.

8          They scoff and speak with malice;

                        loftily they threaten oppression.

9          They set their mouths against the heavens,

                        and their tongue struts through the earth.

10        Therefore his people turn back to them,

                        and find no fault in them.

11        And they say, “How can God know?

                        Is there knowledge in the Most High?”

12        Behold, these are the wicked;

                        always at ease, they increase in riches.

13        All in vain have I kept my heart clean

                        and washed my hands in innocence.

14        For all the day long I have been stricken

                        and rebuked every morning.”

But then, the psalmist realizes how serious his envy of the wicked is.

15        “If I had said, “I will speak thus,”

                        I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

Apparently, envy is (among other things) a betrayal of God’s children. How so? The psalmist doesn’t say. However, I can think of at least two ways in which envy is a betrayal of God’s children.

First, envy ignores the fact that God provides his children with what they truly need. Second, envy is as contagious and deadly as any modern virus. If I am being an envious person, I tend to infect everyone with whom I come into contact with the desire for something that does not pertain to them.

The psalmist couldn’t understand the ultimate fate of the wicked until he went to the sanctuary to worship. Then he realized that the prosperity of the wicked was incredibly temporary.

Psa. 73:16       “But when I thought how to understand this,

                        it seemed to me a wearisome task,

17        until I went into the sanctuary of God;

                        then I discerned their end.

Psa. 73:18       Truly you set them in slippery places;

                        you make them fall to ruin.

19        How they are destroyed in a moment,

                        swept away utterly by terrors!

20        Like a dream when one awakes,

                        O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.

21        When my soul was embittered,

                        when I was pricked in heart,

22        I was brutish and ignorant;

                        I was like a beast toward you.

Psa. 73:23       Nevertheless, I am continually with you;

                        you hold my right hand.

24        You guide me with your counsel,

                        and afterward you will receive me to glory.

25        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.

Psa. 73:27       For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;

                        you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.

28        But 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.”

I am especially struck by the last verse of this psalm. The psalmist began with an affirmation of God’s goodness, but then envy got in the way and nearly derailed him. But then, he realized how temporary and fragile the riches and power of the wicked really are. Finally, the psalmist states that “But as for me, the nearness of the Lord God is my good.”

As someone has said, “When God is all you’ve got, you discover that God is all you need.”