Most of us carry around an unwritten version of how we thought our lives would turn out. We may not think about it every day, but somewhere in the back of our minds, we had a timeline. By this age, we thought we would be married, further along in our career, more financially secure, or living in a different house. Maybe our family would look a certain way, our health would be better, or the years of hard work would have finally started paying off.
Life does not always follow that timeline. Some doors never open. Prayers are not always answered the way we hoped, and things we work hard for sometimes never come together. Over time, we adjust our expectations, thank God for what we have, and try to trust Him with what we do not understand.
Then someone else begins living the life we thought we would have.
When Someone Else Gets the Life You Wanted
Someone else gets the promotion you worked for. A friend buys the house you cannot afford, or another couple announces the pregnancy you have been praying for. Their marriage looks easy while yours takes everything you have to hold together. While their children seem to thrive, yours are struggling. Maybe their business is growing while you are trying to figure out how to make payroll.
Sometimes what makes this especially difficult is that they do not even seem to care about God. You have tried to honor Him through prayer, obedience, service, and difficult choices you believed were right. Meanwhile, someone who ignores God, cuts corners, or lives entirely for themselves seems to be getting ahead.
It raises a painful question: Why do people who ignore God seem to prosper while people trying to follow Him still struggle?
Psalm 73 does not dismiss that question or give us an easy answer. It shows us a man who nearly lost his footing over it—and what finally helped him see his life differently.
When What You See Does Not Fit What You Believe
Psalm 73 was written by Asaph, a worship leader in Israel. His calling was to help God’s people worship and remember the goodness of God. Yet Asaph reached a point when what he saw around him did not seem to fit what he believed.
He begins with a truth he knows: “Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart” (Psalm 73:1). Then he admits how close he came to walking away from it:
“But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” — Psalm 73:2–3
Asaph was not dealing with a passing frustration. He says his feet had almost slipped. What he saw in the lives of other people brought him frighteningly close to losing his faith.
The word translated “prosperity” in verse 3 is the Hebrew word shalom. We often think of shalom as peace, but it can describe a life that appears whole and well. Things are working, there is enough, and life seems to be going the way it is supposed to go.
That is what Asaph saw when he looked at people who ignored God. They appeared healthy, comfortable, powerful, and free from the troubles everyone else carried. At the same time, they were arrogant, violent, and willing to mock God. Yet none of it seemed to cost them anything. Somehow, they kept getting ahead.
Asaph eventually summarizes what he sees: “Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches” (Psalm 73:12).
Of course, nobody is always at ease. But Asaph was no longer seeing them clearly. He was seeing only what envy allowed him to see.
Comparison Tells an Incomplete Story
When we want somebody else’s life, we begin filling in what we do not know. A happy family picture makes us assume their home is always peaceful. After hearing about a neighbor’s promotion and seeing the new boat in his driveway, we imagine he has no real worries. The custom house, the successful children, or the vacation pictures can make the rest of their life look just as good.
Meanwhile, we know everything about our own life: what is in the bank account, what is happening in our marriage, and what keeps us awake at night. Then we take the little we know about someone else and compare it with everything we know about ourselves.
There is no way our life will win that comparison.
Sometimes we create a life that does not even exist. We take the house from one family, the marriage from another, the career from somebody else, and the health of someone online. Then we combine all of it into one imaginary life and wonder why our real life seems disappointing next to it.
That is why comparison is dangerous. It begins with something another person has that we want, but it eventually affects the way we see God. Before long, we begin asking, “If God were really good to me, why didn’t He give me that?”
We start using somebody else’s life to decide whether God has been good to us.
What Is the Point of Following God?
Asaph’s comparison eventually led him to resent his own obedience. He says:
“All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.” — Psalm 73:13–14
In other words, “What was the point?” He had tried to honor God, yet his life remained difficult. The people who ignored God seemed to be doing better than he was.
Perhaps you have felt something similar. You tried to do the right thing, and life got harder. Maybe you stayed faithful in your marriage while someone else walked away from theirs and now appears happier. Your business was run honestly, but someone willing to lie got the contract. Despite all your prayers, service, and giving, nothing seemed to change.
Eventually, the question is no longer simply, “Why are they doing so well?” It becomes, “Why am I even trying?”
Psalm 73 is honest enough to let that question into the room. God is not threatened by our confusion, and the Bible does not pretend faithful people never struggle. But Asaph also knew that his limited perspective could not give him a trustworthy answer.
The Turning Point in Psalm 73
Asaph tried to reason through the problem, but it only wore him out. Then the entire psalm turns on one sentence:
“Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.” — Psalm 73:17
Nothing in the lives of the people he envied had changed. As far as we know, nothing in Asaph’s circumstances had changed either. The difference was that he came into God’s presence and began to see what he could not see before.
The sanctuary was where God’s people gathered to worship, pray, and hear His truth. Asaph had spent so much time looking at everyone else that he needed his attention brought back to God.
There are times when we will not think our way out of what is troubling us. We can sit alone and turn the situation over a hundred different ways, but we are still working with the same limited view. We know only what we can see right now.
That is one reason withdrawing from God and His people is so dangerous when faith is difficult. You may not feel like singing or talking to anyone. Perhaps you are not even sure what you believe anymore. But that is not the time to move farther from the place where your vision can be corrected.
Bring your questions with you. Asaph did.
Prosperity Is Not the Whole Story
In the sanctuary, Asaph finally understood that he had judged the lives of the wicked too early. Their prosperity was real, but it would not last because they had built their lives around things that could not hold them.
At the beginning of the psalm, Asaph thought he was the one standing on unstable ground. In God’s presence, he realized that the people he envied were standing in “slippery places” (Psalm 73:18). Their wealth and influence made them feel untouchable, but they were not beyond God’s judgment.
Asaph had looked at the middle of their story and mistaken it for the ending.
We often do the same thing. Looking at where someone is today, we assume it tells us everything. But a life cannot be measured only by how comfortable it looks right now. Where is that life going? What is it built on? What will remain when the things making it look successful are gone?
God’s justice does not have to be immediate to be certain. A person can gain everything this world offers and still be far from the God who gave them life.
But the answer to envy cannot simply be, “One day they will lose everything.” Asaph still needed to understand what he already had.
God Is Better Than the Life You Thought You Wanted
Asaph finally stops talking about everyone else and looks honestly at his own heart. He admits that envy had made him bitter and senseless toward God. Then he sees something he had missed:
“Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.” — Psalm 73:23–24
At the beginning of the psalm, Asaph thought he was barely holding on. His feet had almost slipped. Now he realizes that God had been holding him the whole time.
Even while Asaph was confused, bitter, and questioning whether following God was worth it, God had not let him go.
That realization leads to the heart of Psalm 73:
“Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” — Psalm 73:25–26
Asaph does not claim that nothing difficult will happen to him. He says the opposite. His body and heart may fail. Everything human eventually does.
But God will not.
The life Asaph wanted may have included more comfort, better health, greater wealth, and fewer problems. Those desires were not all necessarily wrong. The problem was that Asaph had begun treating them as if they could give him the security and wholeness that only God can provide.
That is the lesson at the center of this psalm: God is better than the life you thought you wanted.
The good life is not having everything go according to your plan. The good life is being near to God, even when the plan falls apart.
How Can Someone Far From God Be Brought Near?
Psalm 73 ends with a serious contrast. Those who remain far from God will perish, but Asaph says, “For me it is good to be near God” (Psalm 73:28).
The problem is that none of us naturally begins near to God. Our sin separates us from Him, and no amount of money, success, morality, or religion can close that distance.
That is why Jesus came.
Jesus did not come simply to help us create a better version of the life we already wanted. He came to bring us back to God, lived the life we have failed to live, and died on the cross to take the judgment our sin deserved. Three days later, He rose from the dead.
Because of Jesus, people who are far from God can be brought near.
We do not earn that by cleaning ourselves up or becoming more religious. Instead, we receive it by turning from our sin and putting our faith in Jesus Christ. Faith means trusting that His death was enough to pay for our sin and that His resurrection gives us new life.
Following Jesus does not mean He will give you the exact life you imagined. You may not receive everything you have wanted. But Jesus gives you something better: Himself. Through Him, God forgives you, receives you, and brings you into a relationship that will outlast everything else.
The good news is not that God will give you everything you thought you wanted. The good news is that through Jesus, you can know the God you were made for.
What to Do When Comparison Is Shaking Your Faith
If comparison has been changing the way you see your life or God, begin by identifying where it is entering your life. Is there a person you keep watching? What do they have that you have started believing you need? Naming the comparison can help expose the story you have built around it.
Then bring your disappointment to God instead of pulling away from Him. Tell Him what hurts and where obedience has felt pointless. God already knows. Open Psalm 73 and let Asaph’s honest prayer give you language for your own.
Finally, stay close to people who can help you see clearly. Talk to a pastor, a community group leader, or a mature Christian you trust. Rather than someone who will simply agree with every conclusion you have reached, look for someone who will listen and help bring you back to what is true.
Asaph’s circumstances may not have changed by the end of Psalm 73. What changed was his understanding of what made a life truly good. He began the psalm looking at what everyone else had. He ended it able to say, “It is good to be near God.”
That is still where solid ground is found.