But God, They Don’t Even Like You!
The full video of this teaching is available at the bottom of this post and at this link.
FAITH IN CRISIS
“But as for me, I almost lost my footing. My feet were slipping, and I was almost gone.” (Psalm 73:2)
That’s how Asaph opens the psalm. Not with praise. Not with confidence. But with a quiet collapse. It’s a full-on admission that he was on the verge of walking away from his faith in God.
He wasn’t just any dude with a harp. As we learn in 1 Chronicles 15:16–19, he was one of the key leaders chosen to sing and play as the Ark of the Covenant was brought into Jerusalem. That moment was holy. Historic. And Asaph was front and center—hand-picked by King David to lead Israel in worship. But here in Psalm 73, he isn’t confidently standing before the congregation. He’s unraveling. He’s openly questioning God while trying to hang on to his faith.
Not because he didn’t believe in God, but because he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.
He looks out at the people who want nothing to do with God—people who are arrogant, violent, and self-absorbed—and he sees something that unsettles him: they’re doing great. Really great. They’re healthy. They’re wealthy. Their lives seem untouched by hardship. And as he takes it all in, the questions start rising—not like polite theological inquiries, but like the kind of internal shouting match you have in your head when something just doesn’t add up.
Why do the jerks keep winning? (v.3)
Why do the arrogant keep climbing like nothing can stop them? (v.3)
Why are their bodies strong while others waste away? (v.4)
Why do they sleep easy after mocking God while good people can’t catch a break? (v.5, 11)
Why can they crush people and still get applause? (v.6–8)
He isn’t asking these questions because he’s curious. He’s asking because the world in front of him looks like it’s rewarding the wrong people. It looks upside down. And that throws him.
Asaph wasn’t spiritually immature. He knew the covenant promises. He’d seen the Psalms of David, sung them even, about how God protects the righteous and brings down the wicked. He knew the stories from Torah—of Egypt and Pharaoh, of those who opposed God and were brought to ruin. But these people he’s looking at now? They’re not crashing. They’re climbing. Their pride is their fashion statement. Their influence is growing. And the worst part? Other people are eating it up. Following them. Quoting them. Aspiring to be like them.
Everything Asaph thought he understood about how the world works under God's rule suddenly seems... off.
And it doesn’t just make him question people.
It makes him question the whole system.
It shakes the foundation he’s been standing on.
The theology he’s sung from.
The justice he’s counted on.
It all feels like it’s slipping.
And somewhere between the scrolls he’s studied and the streets he walks each day, Asaph starts to wonder if the songs he’s been singing even hold up.
Because when the wicked win and the faithful suffer, it doesn’t just stir doubt—it calls everything into question.
WORSHIP PULLED HIM BACK
It started small. A simple observation—someone who mocked God but was living large. Just a mosquito bite on the skin of his faith. But then he sees the wicked killing it, living in luxury. And that bite? It gets sanded raw. He just wanted fairness. For the world to line up with the songs he’d spent his life singing. But the frustration thickened. The envy started grinding off the skin of his faith. The wicked didn’t just seem successful—they seemed untouchable. And his own faith? It felt like a waste. His purity, pointless. His convictions, silly. Comparison had warped everything. And the pain it caused wrecked him.
And he admits it. In his jealousy, he wasn’t seeing clearly. He says it himself—he was like a senseless animal (v.22). He wasn’t just upset about the wicked. He was becoming something bitter. Twisted. Blind.
Still sore from comparison. Still sick with envy. Asaph went to the temple to worship. He stepped into the space where God's presence dwelled. Back into the place where truth about God gets sung whether he felt it or not. But in the presence of God, everything starts to shift.
Because it’s there, in that quiet clarity, that he remembers what’s always been true.
“Yet I still belong to you; you hold my right hand.” (v.23)
“You guide me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny.” (v.24)
That’s the turning point.
Asaph doesn’t walk into the temple and get a spreadsheet of answers. He doesn’t get a divine TED Talk on fairness. What he gets is God's presence. Reconnection. Worship.
And in worship, he sees the full picture. Not just the moment of his icky, envious feelings. He begins to see where all this is headed. The high ground the wicked are standing on? He uses words like “slippery path,” “sudden destruction,” “swept away.” (vv.18–19)
He realizes they’re not winning. They’re not secure. They’re living in a temporary comfort that will one day dissolve.
Because now, in the presence of God, he sees it all for what it is.
God isn’t distant.
God isn’t blind.
And Asaph?
He hasn’t been wasting his time.
He hasn’t been forgotten.
He hasn’t been overlooked.
He belongs.
He’s held.
He’s guided.
Not toward comfort—but toward holiness.
Not toward worldly success—
but toward something better:
God’s presence now, through life, and into eternity.
“You hold my right hand.” (v.23)
“You guide me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny.” (v.24)
“Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth.” (v.25)
WHEN RIGHTEOUSNESS FEELS LIKE LOSS
We know this feeling.
We scroll past acquaintances flaunting a lifestyle built on shortcuts or nepotism. You hear your classmate bragging about cheating on their essays and still getting the writing scholarship. We do the right thing—quietly, faithfully—and it goes unnoticed. Worse, it feels like doing the right thing costs us something, while doing the wrong thing seems like it would pay off.
That’s the thing about comparison and bitterness—it doesn’t just distort how we see others. It grinds off the skin of our faith. Asaph realizes that in his jealousy, he wasn’t seeing reality clearly. He was seeing through the fog of unfairness, the blur of injustice, the lens of “Why them and not me?”
We start to wonder if it even matters. If faithfulness counts. If purity of heart is a weight that prohibits our success. We might not say it out loud—but our soul starts to echo Asaph:
"Did I keep my heart pure for nothing?" (v.13)
That’s what comparison does.
It chips away at your peace.
It distorts your view of God, of others, of yourself.
It tells you you’re losing when you’re not.
It convinces you God has forgotten when He hasn’t.
It makes success look like security and wickedness look like wisdom.
But Asaph shows us the way back.
He didn’t win the argument in his head. He got clarity when he stepped into the presence of God, in worship with his fellow believers. That’s where the fog lifts. That’s where the truth settles back in. Not in the isolation of our week. But in community with God’s people.
For Asaph, the presence of God was in the physical temple. For us, the presence of God is found in the collective gathering of His people in worship—whether in a gym, cathedral, around a community well, or hiding in a community bunker in a war torn country.
Because something happens when we gather—when we sing the truth out loud, when we hear the Scriptures read, when we’re surrounded by people who are clinging to faith just like we are. That’s where envy starts to lose its grip. That’s where bitterness gets confronted. That’s where the lies we’ve been believing all week start to sound hollow next to the truth of who God is.
That’s what Psalm 73 shows us. The sanctuary didn’t change Asaph’s circumstances—it changed his perspective. And it didn’t happen alone. It happened in the rhythm of worship. In the middle of the songs. Surrounded by others who had probably asked the same questions, carried the same weight, whispered the same doubts.
The questions didn’t disappear.
But they were no longer the loudest voice in the room.
God’s was.
“Yet I still belong to you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny.” (vv.23–24)
The wicked are not winning.
You are not forgotten.
You are not foolish for being faithful.
And you’re not standing alone.
A NEW TESTAMENT PRO TIP FROM THE APOSTLE PAUL
“Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.“ (Philippians 4:11–13)
This wasn’t written from the patio of a Mediterranean villa. It was scratched out from a prison cell by a man who had been beaten, shipwrecked, abandoned, and nearly killed by a mob that hurled rocks at him—and still somehow found his way to contentment.
Paul doesn’t say contentment came from success. Or ease. Or even getting answers to life’s biggest questions.
His contentment came from connection with Christ—something deeper than circumstance. Like Asaph, Paul had learned to zoom out and see the bigger picture: God’s nearness, God’s grip on his life, and the future glory that no one could steal.
Again, comparison distorts that view. Because we rarely compare our circumstances to the 90% of the world that has it worse—we compare them to the 10% that has it better. But Asaph and Paul’s kind of contentment comes from knowing that no matter where we are—rich or poor, winning or barely hanging on—we are held by Christ, strengthened by Christ, and destined for more than what this life offers.
So what do we do when envy creeps in? When comparison starts chipping away at our peace?
We gather.
We worship.
We practice gratitude—not because life is perfect, but because God is present.
And we lift our eyes from what is temporary to what is eternal.
That’s the way forward.
©2025 Greg McNichols, All rights reserved.
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