The ‘short-term thinking’ trap has a hair-trigger. The believer sees the happy, healthy, and prosperous unbeliever and wonders if the struggles of faith are worth it. Asaph wrote Psalm 73 as a ‘Them and Me’ song that lays out the details of this struggle. From the outset he acknowledges that THEY (the prosperous unbelievers) nearly got HIM (the believer) to lose his firm-faith-footing. The callous pride that made the wicked rich, started to look good to him. It was obvious that God didn’t curse them with bad health, since they always scored high in the wellness stats. Who couldn’t be impressed when they ruled with their heads in the air and that anyone who suffered under their oppression were just to remember their lowly station in life. How impressive that they could speak as if they were God Himself and as if they owned the world. In fact, all the people hung off every word and they doubted that God knew what was going on, anyway. Life was all holidays and fattening investment portfolios. Why, he wonders, did he bother to be honest, then? This stuff had upset his sleep. But he knew that to sell out was to admit that God’s people were wasting their lives on faith. So, he went to church and got his doctrines straight—’The judgment day for the unbeliever will come.’ They will eventually pay for their self-centred lifestyles. They will go to bed living the dream but will wake to a nightmare. He knew all along that envying those guys was just appealing to his animal instincts. He corrected his mindset. ‘God is always with him, showing me the way to wisdom and to heaven.’ Earth, he knew, held nothing of real value. Physical life gives out eventually, but God was his strength forever. He had all he needed in God. Unbelievers and the unfaithful would suffer ultimate destruction. His last words in v.28 were: “But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge, I will tell of all your deeds.”
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