When Life Isn’t Fair

Last November, a story came out of Chicago about a tragic accident involving a pastor and his family. The pastor and his wife, who lived in Milwaukee, were on a one-day visit to Chicago with 5 of their 7 children. They were driving their mini-van along an expressway when suddenly their vehicle ran over a sharp metal rod which had fallen off a passing truck and was laying on the roadway.

The piece of metal bounced up and punctured the gas tank of the van, which immediately exploded into flames. Before they could realize what was happening and get the van stopped, four of the five children had burned to death, and the fifth died in the hospital later that day. The pastor and his wife survived.

But since that terrible day in November when most of their family was snatched away in an instant, that Christian couple must have found themselves asking the questions that we find raised in Psalm 73.

Why do godly people so often seem to go through such horrendous trials while ungodly people seem to have tranquil, happy, and successful lives? Why does life so often seem to be hard and unfair for a child of God? When all is said and done, is it really worth it to be a believer?

If you’ve ever found yourself asking these kinds of tough questions, you’re in pretty good company. The writer of Psalm 73, a man named Asaph, had the same struggles. He said:

Psalm 73:1-2 Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold.

When I was in high school chemistry class, I can remember—when we weren’t fooling around—actually doing some lab experiments. (Now you have to understand that I was no Amanda Crippen in chemistry class!) The lab results that I got did not often agree with the results that the chemistry textbook predicted I should get.

When the textbook said that I should get 10 milliliters of ammonia; I only got 3. When the textbook said that your solution should change color in 30 seconds; my solution exploded. Things like that.

And this is what Asaph is wrestling with in Psalm 73. He says “My doctrine tells me one thing, but my experience tells me another. My Bible tells me that God is good, but my experience tells me that maybe He’s not. Things aren’t going right for me, I’m having a hard time, my life is really messed up. My lab results don’t seem to measure up to what the textbook says should be happening.

And if that’s not frustrating enough, I look around and I see that many of my fellow classmates—people who aren’t even consulting the textbook, people who don’t even care what the textbook says—they are getting good results!

They are prosperous—they have plenty of money (v.3). They have no struggles. They are healthy, and strong, and beautiful (v.4). They are carefree—they don’t seem to have burdens to bear (v.5). They are proud and arrogant. They seem to be able to get away with murder (v.6).

And on and on he goes, listing how the ungodly seem to have it all over the believer. In verse 11 Asaph complains that “people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance.” They’re the ones who are influencing the masses. They are the ones who are moulding public opinion. They’re the ones who are gaining the audience’s ear and shaping the culture.

And they are godless. They say “How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?” Their whole lifestyle is built on the premise that God is a know-nothing God and a do-nothing God.

And so, by the time he comes to verse 13, Asaph is feeling pretty sorry for himself.

“Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning.”

In other words, “it doesn’t seem to pay to be a godly person.” When you look around you and see how people are making out in the game of life, it doesn’t look like the believers on are on the winning side.

And, having come to that conclusion, what is doubly frustrating is that Asaph realizes that he’d better keep his mouth shut about it. Because is he says it out loud—if he dares to utter what he has been thinking—he may mess his family and friends up; he may destroy their faith. Look at verse 15:

If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed your children.

So he kept quiet. He held it all in.

You know, there are a lot of Christians like that. Maybe you’re one of them. You are walking around secretly disappointed with God and with Christianity because you feel like it isn’t working for you, but you’re afraid to say anything about it.

You’ve read the textbook and it says that you should be having an abundant life. But then you look at you lab results and you see anything but. And you hear the siren song of our culture that tells you to abandon God and enjoy life.

So what do you do? Well, look at what Asaph did.

Psalm 73:16 When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.

Verse 16 is the hinge on which this whole Psalm turns. And it is the hinge on which your whole life can turn. In verse 16, Asaph tells us that you cannot understand what life is all about just by looking at life. It’s too confusing, too contradictory—it so often doesn’t seem to make sense.

The only way to really understand what life is all about is to turn your eyes upon God. It wasn’t until Asaph entered the sanctuary—the place of worship—that he began to see things clearly.

Why do we come here to worship God every Sunday? Do we do it because it’s just the thing to do? Do we do it out of habit or because of tradition? Is there a practical purpose to it?

Indeed there is. If you were to eliminate worship from your life, you would be eliminating the only thing that can give you a right perspective on what your life is all about.

Asaph needed to turn his eyes on God and get his eyes off himself before he could find answers to these questions and doubts. He said “When I tried to understand, I couldn’t. But when I entered the sanctuary and began to worship God, then I understood.”

Have you seen those amazing 3D pictures that are all the rage in the stores these days? When you look right at the picture, it is just a jumble of color. It doesn’t make any sense—the lines, the patterns don’t mean anything.

But if you focus your eyes beyond the picture and wait a few seconds, suddenly the picture jumps into focus. As long as you’re focusing on the picture, you can’t see it. As soon as you focus beyond it, the picture becomes clear.

Life is just like that. As long as we’re focusing on life itself, we’ll never understand it. But when we come into the presence of God and begin to focus our attention on Him, life starts to make sense.

Asaph began to realize that those people he had been envying were standing on very slippery ground. Their position looked secure, but is was anything but.

I grew up on the shores of the St. Lawrence River. Near our house there was a boat ramp—a concrete driveway that went down into the water. If you wanted to launch a boat, you would back your boat trailer down the ramp and into the water where you could then float your boat off.

The only problem was that the lower part of the boat ramp was covered with slippery green algae. If you backed your car down too far and got the drive wheels onto that slippery algae, you’d have a problem. I remember once seeing a car completely in the river, because the driver got onto that slippery stuff. And the more he tried to spin the wheels to get out, the farther in he went!

People who leave God out of their lives are on slippery ground. Oh, they may look like they have it all together, but it’s only a matter of time before they are ruined. They are going to face the judgment of God.

Look at how Asaph’s focus shifts in the latter portion of this Psalm. In the first 15 verses, Asaph is looking at himself and at other people. The pronouns he uses are all I, me, and they.

But in the last 13 verses, he’s looking at God. The pronouns change to You. He says “you hold me, you guide me, you will take me to glory.”

Does the way that you speak reveal where your spiritual focus is? If someone were to keep track of the pronouns you use, would they find me, my, and mine at the top of the list? Or is your outlook upward, upon God?

When you put your focus on God, you begin to understand yourself better. In verse 21, Asaph realizes, with some embarrassment, just how foolish he has been. Look at what he says there:

Psalm 73:21 When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.

When you have your eyes on yourself instead of on God, Asaph says, you’re a dummy. You are senseless and ignorant. You may think that you’re thinking logically, but you will consistently reason logically to the wrong conclusions. But when you put your eyes on God in worship, your thought processes begin to straighten out.

And you begin to feel a sense of security and peace. Pick it up at verse 23 and listen to the incredible security Asaph expresses:

Psalm 73:23 Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Life can often seem unfair to a Christian. There will be many times when we won’t understand what is happening to us. But if your focus is on God, you can go through those times with the assurance that God still loves you and hasn’t forgotten about you.

There once was a man who was a big football fan. He lived in Hawaii, but he rooted for the Washington Redskins. Back in their glory years, the Redskins were often on Monday Night Football. Now in Hawaii, Monday Night Football is a delayed telecast because of the difference in the time zones.

A game that starts at 9:00 p.m. EST will be over and done with by the time they are doing the supper dishes in Hawaii. So they delay the telecast in Hawaii in order to show the game in prime time.

But whenever the Redskins were playing on Monday night, this man couldn’t wait to find out the final score. So he’d tune in the radio and get the final score of the game, and, as it often happened, he would discover that the Redskins won.

Then he’d at 9 o’clock, he’d sit down and watch the game. But because he already knew the final outcome, he’d watch it differently than he usually did. In the first half, if the Redskins fumbled, instead of becoming all upset, he’d say “That’s okay, that’s okay.”

If the quarterback threw an interception and the other team ran it back for a touchdown, he’d smile and say “That’s alright, no problem.” His wife thought he was nuts. Knowing who won in the end made all the difference in how he handled adversity during the game.

Listen. I have read the last page of the Bible and guess what? We win!

That doesn’t mean that we won’t have to face some adversity along the way. And things may happen that are very painful and may even seem unfair. And the other team may be ahead at halftime. But if you are on God’s side, you win in the end.

Asaph was encouraged to know that. The way he discovered it was in worship. He kept his focus on God. And I’m glad that he reminded us of it today.