Why do the wicked prosper? Should I denounce God and follow the ways of the wicked?
Two years after I graduated from the college I started seeing my fellow graduates getting appointed to various public and private offices for collar jobs, being promoted, owning nicer cars, bigger houses and others venturing into profitable personal projects.
It was quite unfortunate that many of them were the kind who never made any attempts for God and were engaged in doing awkward activities at the college like clubbing, umalaya, boozing while I warmed my books and helped in monitoring hygiene at the college chapel.
Seeing them prospering was a greater disappointment to me. I started growing jealousy, envy not only to myself but also to God. I halted attending fellowships, cursed the days I had spent on fasting and prayers.
Then I looked at the environment around me and saw it were self styled false prophets extorting hundreds and thousand of the flocks in the name of miracles.
I recalled everywhere in the mass media it was the corrupt officials, big belly land grabbers heading big corporate companies, government directories and owned chunks of lands. Because of their wallets, they sleep with all types of beautiful young ladies at the university and infect them with STDs & HIV.
I looked at the hospitals, churches and shrines and saw that persons who commit or aid in committing abortion get successful labor while their counterparts who abstain from sex or stay faithful either undergo cesarean or die childless.
I watched in Newscasts it was the criminal tycoons winning court cases yet the innocent poor rot in prisons without receiving any forms of social justices.
I lost a sense of humanity, hated both the society and God. I lost patriotism over nature and empathy for humanity. I had learnt to live with my sudden changes of mood and erratic behaviors.
Where was God’s presence when all these happened? Where was his presence when members of the illuminate gained popularity as world’s best sports men, artists, leaders etcetera while his good children suffered miserly, injustice and prolonged illnesses?
Why do the wicked prosper? Should I denounce God and follow the ways of the wicked? were questions triggering my minds.
Do you ever wonder why it seems like the wicked prosper more than the godly? Why is it that bad things happen more often to good people than to the bad people? If so you are not alone!
You will meet some people even in the Bible/ Qur’an asking these questions and wondering if godliness really pays off in the end.
The wicked prosper in life because God, the God of the righteous has made it so. In the gospel of St. Mathew 5:45, scriptures say; “For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” God loves the wicked as so he loves the righteous, but, why doesn’t he bless the good more than the wicked!
While we think God has abandoned and forgotten our good deeds to the church and the communities in which we live and blessed the wicked and sinners, we start becoming envious and jealousy towards them.
Few months ago, I was surfing and landed on scriptures on the Tree of Life Version. I realized prophet Jeremiah in the Bible had questioned God on why the wicked prosper? This was when he was being sought by the Anathoth who were against his prophesy in the name of Adonai.
“You Adonai, when I plea my case with you about justice, why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the treacherous thrive?” Jeremiah 12.
Like Jeremiah, many people seek to serve God and to be faithful to him. They invest time and resources in that service trying to make a positive difference in the world. However, these are hitherto heartbroken when they see people who are anti the gospel making it in life.
You look at your neighbours, co workers, coursemates, friends, family members, celebrities, and those who are making no attempts to please God prospering than you.
You start envying their prosperity, lose the faith and wonder if serving God, being obedient to his commands really pays off? You turn your back from him and follow the ways of the wicked.
“Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped, I had lost nearly my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” Psalms 73.
However, as human beings, we forget to consider the destiny of the wicked and sinners. We lose values to maintaining pure hearts and personal innocence without considering the end of wickedness and realizing that they are on their pathways to ruin.
Before denouncing God and following ways of the wicked, you need to know that their prosperity will not endure. Its for a short time, it will be swept away and all memory of their former prosperity will be like a dream. Don’t we vaguely and elusively remember this???
“When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God, then understood their final destiny,” Psalms 73:16-17
Once again, remembering what you have in God will spare you walking the ways of the wicked.
“Yet 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 on earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart in portion forever,” Psalms 73:23-26.
Good things might happen to bad people now but it will not continue. And while you might not enjoy some of the prosperity of the wicked that this world cherishes, you must remember that you have something much greater. God’s presence to guide you in life and in the end when the wicked will be punished and you are taken into Paradise.
Once this is realised, you will return to God and renew your relationship with him. You will not envy the picked for what they have is only passing and the reverse eternal. They deserve your pity rather than your envy.
Therefore, put your hope in God. Do what is best required of you, he will do the rest! He will always be with you in portion forever now and through eternity. Your road may not be as smooth as that of the wicked but it will end in his rest. Do not be tempted to envy what others have, consider their fate.
By Leonard Kamugisha Akida
Journalist at Parrots UG.
info@parrotsug.com
kamugisha.leonardakida@gmail.com
www.parrotsug.com
