Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not
envious of wrongdoers!
For they will soon fade like the grass and
wither like the green herb.
Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the
land and befriend faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give
you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and
he will act.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the
light,
and your justice as the noonday.
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently
for him;
fret not yourself over the one who prospers in
his way,
over the man who carries out
evil devices!
Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret
not yourself; it tends only to evil.
For the evildoers shall be cut off,
but those
who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.
In just a little while, the wicked will be no
more;
though you look carefully at
his place, he will not be there.
But the meek shall inherit the land
and
delight themselves in abundant peace…
I have been young, and now am
old,
yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
or his children begging for
bread.
He is ever lending generously, and his
children become a blessing…
I have seen a wicked, ruthless man,
spreading
himself like a green laurel tree.
But he passed away, and behold, he was no more;
though I sought him, he could
not be found.
Mark the blameless and behold the upright,
for
there is a future for the man of peace.
But transgressors shall be altogether
destroyed;
the future of the wicked shall be cut off.
The salvation of the righteous is from the
Lord;
he is their stronghold in the
time of trouble.
Psalm 37
Reflection – Back to the Monday Psalter,
with bits and pieces of Psalm 37. There is quite a bit more in this vein in
this rather long psalm (to be honest, and meaning no disrespect, it is rather
repetitive).
This is a
very human psalm, addressing a very human emotion we can all relate to a bit, I
think.
Namely, the resentment of the prospering wicked. The experience, which
everyone has, that in this life justice is imperfect, bad people do quite well
for themselves (often) and good people not infrequently get the short end of
things.
This bothers us—which seeing as how it is an incredibly common and
normal experience of life in the world, actually is indirect evidence that we
are not entirely made for this world, that there is something in us that years
for a justice that is not of this world. The human passion for justice is one
small argument for the existence of God.
Nonetheless,
this psalm is concerned with helping us stay peaceful in the meantime. And the
advice it gives is a nice little bit of homely wisdom. ‘Fret not yourself’.
This could well stand as good advice for all those using social media. The
Internet too often is an Outrage Machine
churning out fodder day and night for us to fret over. Whether it is the latest
depredations of our political leaders, the latest misdeeds or silly comments by
our celebrity class, some disagreeable or offensive move by some high church
official, or just some bad behaviour by some random person that happened to get
filmed and went viral—there is always something to fret about, something to get
all upset over.
Fret not
yourself. While Psalm 37 is an early psalm and there is little sense of an
afterlife in it, and hence the psalmist has to assert that justice eventually
gets done in this world (we know that it doesn’t, often), we who are Christians
can confidently assert that all things will be set at right in the end.
If the
wicked are prospering and the good ailing, it is woeful for sure, but it is
temporary. And there is little good achieved, and much harm done, by climbing
on board the latest outrage ride on the outrage machine, adding one’s voice to
the latest Greek chorus baying for blood from the latest wrongdoer.
Fret not
yourself. And this psalm is really about keeping your focus where you need to
keep it, on doing what is good in your own life, in living righteously where
you are, in not getting distracted. That is the harm done by the outrage
machine—it distracts us, and diverts our natural human passion for justice from
where it should go—to self-examination and zeal for the good—to an ultimately
futile and useless expenditure of energy.
Fret not
yourself, because it does nothing to add to the store of justice and goodness in
the world. All flesh is in God’s hands, and we only need concern ourselves with
doing the good that is before us today. So let’s get on with it.
"Trust in the Lord, and He will do everything for you."
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