Psalm 37 Part 1

In church last week the sermon came from the first half of Psalm 37.  This was such a timely Psalm for me.  I have broken it down into several parts, and will post the rest as I pray through it.

Psalm 37:1-9 (ESV)

He Will Not Forsake His Saints

Of David.

37 Fret not yourself because of evildoers;
    be not envious of wrongdoers!

² For they will soon fade like the grass
    and wither like the green herb.

·         Fret not… to fret or worry is to think a lot about something I have no control over.  Fret to me has a connotation of a fussy child – one who is uncomfortable and tired and incapable of being reasoned with.  You have to make them calm down.  This Psalm says three times, “Fret not”.  It is a command, and it requires deliberate action on my part.

·         Concern is different, concern is “what I am supposed to do, and how do I do it?”  Concern leads to action of some kind.

·         Evildoers – anybody or anything that goes against God.  Sometimes they seem to prosper on this earth, but their prosperity will not last into eternity.  Life on earth is indeed fleeting in the light of eternity.

 

³ Trust in the Lord, and do good;
    dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

·         Trust is knowing that God will do it.  God will take care of whatever this situation is.

·         Often it’s really not my problem, or it’s something I have NO control over.

·         Go do the next thing – Do good.  If there is nothing I can do in this situation, maybe my role here is to simply pray and give it to God, and then walk away and trust Him to handle it.

·         “Befriend faithfulness” is better translated “cultivate faithfulness”.  The deliberate daily task of trusting God rather than fretting grows faithfulness in me.  Live life faithfully.  How do I do that?  Stay in the Word.  Pray about everything.  Go do the next good thing.

⁴ Delight yourself in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

·         If I am delighting in the LORD, then the desire of my heart has become Him, and He promises to give me Himself.  This is key.  But how do I delight in the LORD?

o   I recognize what He has done for me: life, salvation, the sun coming up today, and everything in between.  And I thank Him for it all.  I spend my day looking for things to thank God for.  I keep a list in the back of my journal, and I add to it daily.  Big things, small things, people, things that make me happy – it all goes in my list of thanksgiving.

o   Stay in the Word.  This is crucial, it gives me the perspective I need to direct my thinking.

⁵ Commit your way to the Lord;
    trust in him, and he will act.
⁶ He will bring forth your righteousness as the light,
    and your justice as the noonday.

·         Commit my way – I am all in: heart, mind, and soul.  Sometimes my emotions don’t agree, but that doesn’t matter if I am committed.

·         He will act – it is not something I do, it is something God does.  That has been a recurring theme here, right?  I am fretting over a situation that I have no control over, but it is not something I fix, it is something God will do.

·         And what will He do?  He will give me the righteousness of Christ, and He will bring justice to evildoers.  The rest of the Book, and experience, tell me that it may not happen right away, but remember, this life is fleeting.  Eternity is forever.  God’s justice is forever.

⁷ 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!

·         Be still

·         Wait patiently

·         Fret not

·         These are things to deliberately do.  To be still and wait patiently are the opposite of fretting.  And it’s not just be still and wait, but be still before the LORD and wait patiently for the LORD.  He is the object.  When we focus on the prosperous evil man we begin to fret.

⁸ Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
    Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
⁹ For the evildoers shall be cut off,
    but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.

·         Fretting, being anxious, leads to a cycle of depression and anger; is that really what I want?

·         Fretting leads to evil, so what does that mean if I am fretting about someone else’s evil deeds?

·         Wait for the LORD.  He will cut off the evildoer, and He will reward His own children.

©Rebecca Givens, 01/30/16

Thoughts on Sunrises

I’ve watched a lot of sunrises in my life; yes, I am a morning person. A lot of mornings this past summer I’ve been up early enough to be sitting on my deck with my Bible as the sun came up. There was a morning a few weeks ago that was so spectacularly beautiful it brought tears to my eyes – every shade of red and orange and yellow imaginable. This past morning, and the last few, have not been spectacular. The sky gets lighter, the ball of fire breaks the horizon, the sky is a beautiful clear blue. Not that that’s not amazing and wonderful in and of itself – it just isn’t the light show that happened a few weeks ago.

Here’s the thing. On those spectacular sunrise mornings there are clouds. Lots of low lying clouds that reflect the sun before it rises above the horizon. The red and orange and yellow flaming through the sky before the ball of fire breaks the horizon is a feast for the eyes. But these sunrises do not turn into what we would call “a beautiful day.” Clouds are often signs of storms and turbulence.

Life is like that. Clear blue sky has a beauty of its own, and life that’s cruising along without a hitch does too. But clouds reflect the sun better than clear sky, and a life full of trouble reflects God’s glory in a way that it otherwise could not. Nobody wants these bad times in life – but look to God, cling to Him, and let your troubled life reflect His spectacular Glory in a powerful and beautiful way. This Sonrise will set the sky on fire.

2 Corinthians 4:6-11 (ESV) - For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

 

©Rebecca Huffman Givens, 10/17/15

Where will you run?

This morning I read 1 Kings 19:1-18, and was blown away by it. Great victory comes crashing down for Elijah, and he runs. They want to kill him, but what else is new? Didn’t they want to kill him before? Didn’t they have the power to kill him before? What’s different is his fear. This is a man who stood before the prophets of baal and laughed at them publicly. Suddenly he is afraid. He is crashing from the high of spiritual victory, he is exhausted, and all he can see is an angry queen seeking his life. He can’t see God in that moment.

So what does Elijah do? He runs. But get this, He doesn’t run from God, He runs to God. He runs to the Mountain of God.  He is so depressed he wants to die, yet he runs to God. Along the way God listens to him, God feeds him, God gives him the strength to continue running in the right direction. Through his dark night of the soul, in the midst of a depression so deep he wants to die, Elijah runs to God.

He ends up in a cave on the Mountain of God, and God asks him, “Why are you here?” Elijah tells God his problems. God doesn’t berate him for being depressed, God doesn’t fuss at him at all. God’s answer was “Stand before me. Look at me. Listen to me.” Did you catch that? God’s answer was to move Elijah’s focus back onto God Himself.

So Elijah waits as God’s power blows by in a hurricane force wind. The earth shakes in an earthquake as God approaches. A consuming fire sweeps across the landscape in front of the cave. It feels like God is saying, “Elijah, remember who I am. I am the All Powerful Creator. I am in control of everything.” And then, best of all, God speaks in a low whisper. An intimate loving whisper to His child. “Elijah, why are you here?” Tell me your troubles. And God listens. God is there, present with Elijah, loving Elijah, and He still doesn’t berate him for his depression. He just listens as Elijah pours out his fear.

And then, God gives Elijah the next job. Go do the next thing Elijah; you have three men to anoint, two rulers of nations, and your own successor. Elijah, you have a job, something important to do. Then God tells him what will happen to his enemies. Elijah, I am not abandoning you in your fight. And lastly, God tells him there are thousands of Believers still. Elijah, hear me, you are not alone.

Elijah obeys. He does the next thing. His circumstances had not changed in the least, the queen of the land still sought his life. But Elijah gets up and does the next thing. His gaze is now on God.

To me there are several things that stand out in this story.

In Elijah’s great distress He ran toward God, not away. He was physically exhausted, his life was in danger, he was so depressed he wanted to die. Yet he ran to God.

God’s reaction to Elijah was not, “you shouldn’t feel that way!” He didn’t even point out how much worse off someone else was. It was simply, “Elijah, look at ME.” And then, “Elijah, go do…” and finally, at the end, reassurance that God’s plan would take care of Elijah’s enemies.

Elijah immediately got up to obey. Obedience was important. Elijah trusted God and so He obeyed.

In your dark night of the soul, be like Elijah. Not the strong victorious Elijah, but the terrified exhausted Elijah who wanted to die.

Run to God. Hear Him; you have His Word to read. Look at Him. Trust Him. Obey Him. Because like Elijah, you have an important job to do. God will not abandon you in your struggle. You are not alone.

 

©Rebecca Huffman Givens, 09/13/15