“In three seconds, everything washed away,” The Seattle Times headlines read on March 23, 2014. The previous day, an entire rain-drenched hillside collapsed, smothering a small community in mud and debris. Some victims were trapped in their homes as the structures were torn from foundations. The disaster was quickly ranked as among the state’s worse, up there with the volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens, earthquakes and horrific windstorms. As I processed the news coverage of this sad, unexpected disaster, I was also thinking of lessons from my study of Psalm 37. Only God knows the true spiritual condition of each who died, and some were likely solid Christians. But the enormity of the landslide made me wonder what will happen at the end of time, when Psalm 37 says the wicked will be destroyed. Jesus also taught about the sobering suddenness of events when He returns: “Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left” (Matt. 24:40-41).
Psalm 37 is one of seven acrostic psalms, built off the Hebrew alphabet. In Bible times, alphabet songs helped teach spiritual truth to children and adults. The big idea behind Psalm 37 is finding spiritual peace in the midst of the age-old battle between good and evil. Or, to simplify it to two “m” words, between the “meek” and the “mean.” Verse 5 is a key: “The meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace” (37:5). In His sermon on the mount, Jesus reiterated that truth: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5). He didn’t elaborate, but David had already, hundreds of years earlier, in this psalm.
MEEKNESS
The same Hebrew word for “meek” in Psalm 37:11 (anayw) was also used to describe Moses’
humble reaction when his siblings criticized Moses’ choice of a wife: “Now
Moses was a very humble (anayw, “meek”
in KJV) man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth” (Numbers
12:3 NIV). A common definition of this Biblical trait is “strength under
control.” Moses lived out the proactive responses David gave in Psalm 37:“Fret not”—literally, don’t get heated up. Stay cool. As if for emphasis, “fret not” is repeated in verses 7 and 8. It’s easy to fret when bad seems to be winning out, and bad people seem to prosper, but God says keep the long view in mind.
“Trust in the Lord”—Trusting in God
includes practical steps of doing good and doing your best in your
circumstances (“dwell in the land”).
“Take delight in the
Lord”—Delighting in the Lord shows others that He is worthy of our love and
worship, not the frowning, legalistic deity that non-believers tend to see Him
as. The promise to give us the “desires of our heart” means that when our
desires match up with His, we will know those blessings. It’s not a cart
blanche promise to receive any frivolous thing out there. Sometimes God needs to protect us from our
unwise desires.
“Commit your way to
the Lord”—The original language is a picturesque term of “rolling off our
burdens.” Years ago, visiting a banana planation in Panama, I watched workers
shouldering huge just-cut stalks, laden with dozens of green bananas. They took these burdens to trailers, gently
rolling them off into padded platforms. Similarly, God says to roll our burdens
onto Him—as 1 Peter 5:7 expresses it: “Cast
all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
“Be still before the Lord”—Waiting on God goes hand-in-hand with
waiting patiently for His perfect timing. David put it another way in Psalm
62:5: “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.”
“Refrain from anger”—God
wants us to guard against anger, instead fully trusting Him when facing injustice
and disappointment.
MEANNESS
Psalm 37 gives various names for the “mean”: “the wicked”
(14 times in the King James version), “those who do/are evil,” “who do wrong,”
“who carry out wicked schemes,” “those he [God] curses,” “enemies,”
“wrongdoers,” and “sinners.” This conflict between the “godly” and the “wicked”
goes back to God’s covenant with Israel, told in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy
27-30. If Israelites obeyed God, they could live in the Promised Land and enjoy
its blessings—the reason behind “the land” or “inheritance” repeated eight
times n Psalm 37. If they disobeyed God, they’d be chastened by invasion,
drought, or famine. Chronic disobedience would mean removal from the land—which
is exactly what happened during 70 years captivity under foreign rulers.
In David’s time, however, hundreds of years before
captivity, the faithful saw wicked people prospering, contrary to their
thinking that God should only prosper those who followed Him. In this psalm,
David was teaching them to trust God’s character. He would punish the
wicked—and thoroughly: “All sinners will be destroyed; there will be no more future
for the wicked” (v. 38). In the meantime, they weren’t supposed to give up on
the Promised Land and move elsewhere (as did Naomi’s family in the book of
Ruth).
Our modern economy has changed customs of inherited lands.
One good result of this is the freedom to move to different places to do God’s
work. On the other hand, it allows people to give up when God might want them instead
to stay and work through problems. One who has learned to listen to God’s call
to “wait” or “go” is Edith Schaeffer.
Her words in Common Sense
Christian Living (Nelson, 1983, p. 227) are worth considering: “You and I
often want to know, ‘What comes next?’ God is saying, ‘Trust Me,’ He is saying,
‘Stay in the place where you are until I show you [in a variety of ways,
usually not mystical at all] what comes next.’ He is saying, ‘Blessed is the
person who waits in the dark, holding My hand.’”
One more important reason to stay put: our witness to the “mean”
or ungodly. This quote by 19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon
says it well: “If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our
bodies. If they will perish, let them perish
with our arms around their knees. Let no
one go there unwarned and unprayed for.”
That’s a “bold” assignment for the “meek”!
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