Pastoral Pings ~ When Karma Bows Its Knees to Christ

          I never thought a friend’s post about karma would lead to a connection over Psalm 73 that was exactly what I needed as I faced some unruly feelings this morning. Let me explain.

          Karma is a counterfeit way of explaining the spiritual principle that we reap what we sow.[1] It is right down there with “what goes around comes around,” “God helps them who helps themselves,” and any other manmade way of trying to describe why people get what they deserve, good or bad.

          However, the point of my friend’s post was that things don’t always go the way we think they should. Bad people seem to get away with a lot of bad stuff. Good people often seem to get far more than their share of human misery. From the counterfeit viewpoint, karma isn’t playing fair. From a real viewpoint, now we have to deal with God (People who want the easier way stick with karma).

          If we’re going to get personal with God and ask him why he lets bad people get away with bad things, and good people bear far more bad things than they deserve or can handle, then we need to accept that God is going to get personal right back at us. Psalm 73 is one of the ways he has done so with me.

          Psalm 73 tells of a man named Asaph who had lived his life as a devout follower of the true God of heaven, and was seeking to live the righteous life that God had taught him. However, he hit a place in his life that he could only describe as: “Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. 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.”[2]

          Asaph’s problem was that the wicked prospered. He went on to describe their health, wealth, prosperity lifestyles that were in direct contradiction to the revealed justice of God. The righteous were supposed to prosper, and the wicked were supposed to be cursed. Something was wrong.

          The pivotal point in the Psalm is when Asaph meets with God. He writes, “But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.”[3] When Asaph let his sark play around with the injustice of the situation, it only made him feel exhausted.

          However, when Asaph got alone with God, meeting in the sanctuary of God’s presence, he saw the bigger picture. It wasn’t what Asaph saw happening at the moment that was telling him about the justice of God. It was what he discerned as “their end”. He discovered what another would say so clearly, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”[4] The cure to envying the wicked is to look at where they are heading. Justice will be victorious in the end.

          Which brings me to where the Psalm ends. After beginning with a story that verged on spiritual suicide, Asaph concludes with some of the most beautiful expressions of praise to the God who had shown him mercy, and kept him from slipping into the same deceived world as the wealthy wicked. He wrote:

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.[5]

          Asaph’s heart-compass had been reoriented to the map of God. His eyes had turned upward. When his eyes were fixed on God, he no longer desired the prosperity of the wicked. Even if his very being were to fail him, he would find his strength in God, his eternal portion.

          There is a melody to these words that helps me express them to God, and myself. Even when I am bombarded with the success of my enemies, or the failure of all my dreams, I can sing these words to my heart with the cry of, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”[6]

          Psalm 73 helps me tell my soul to put its hope in God. I hope it does the same for you.[7]

© 2014 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)

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[1] Galatians 6:7

[2] Psalm 73:1-3

[3] Psalm 73:16-17

[4] Proverbs 14:12; 16:25

[5] Psalm 73:25-26

[6] Psalm 42:11

[7] 73 Truly God is good to Israel,
    to those who are pure in heart.
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.

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.
¹⁵ If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
    I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

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.

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.

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.

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.