Psalm 37

“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.” Psalm 37:3-8

Trust - Trust is emphasized twice in this passage, so I think that David thinks it’s important! You hear that trust is one of the most important characteristics of a healthy relationship, so it is obviously going to apply to your relationship with the Father. I say that I trust Him, but do I really? Have you ever thought about how little you trust Him? I think about it as a comparison between Him and my mom. I trust my mom A LOT! If she says she is going to do something, I have a lot of trust that she is going to do what she says. But do I trust Him that much? Do I trust Him when he says, “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11)? Do I trust Him when he says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5)? He is a promise FULFILLER (Joshua 21:45, 23:14, Jeremiah 1:12) and His promises will always be fulfilled. Increase your trust in Him and I promise that you will never be let down.

Do good - I want my faith to be obvious to my friends, to people who see my social media posts, to people who see me walk across campus and everyone in between! How do I do that? I do good and praise Him and give all the glory to Him. James 2:14 says, “faith without works is dead,” and I want my faith to be alive and living! The Word is encouraging and simply living it out could encourage someone who is struggling in their faith, or encourage someone to know the Lord or just simply making someone smile! Spread joy to those around you and do good!

Delight in the Lord! - De-light / di-ˈlīt : to give keen enjoyment. This one kind of seems obvious. Heck yes I will choose to enjoy the Lord, but how often do we forget that our circumstances should not dictate how we delight in the Lord? How often do I only delight in Him when things are going well, or I have a spiritual high? Delighting in Him is just like joy - you have to choose it every. single. day. The end of this verse says, “...and he will give you the desires of your heart.” When I was younger, I prayed almost every day that He would give me the desire of my heart, which was to move to Fredericksburg. It never happened and I remember thinking, “what in the world, God?! You said that you would give me the desires of my heart and I have been praying every single day that we would move and it has not happened!” But I was missing a HUGE part of this, which is delighting in the Lord. I full heartedly believe that if we delight in the Lord, our desires become His desires. Our mindset begins to shift and we see the world through a kingdom mindset, so our desires will become more kingdomly (not sure if that is a word, but it works!)

Commit - If someone is committed to doing something, you expect them to follow through with that, right? So when David says to commit your way to the Lord, you need to follow through with that! I sometimes avoid committing myself to Him because I know I will likely fail and stumble, but we are not big enough to let God down. Do you ever think about that? Our silliness will never be able to let God down, He is almighty and His plan will still stand when we fail. But committing to Him despite how you feel is honoring to Him. When you’re knocked down, get back up and run after Him. If you don’t think that God will welcome you with open arms, just go read Luke 15:11-32. He loves you and is even jealous for you (Exodus 20:5). Commit is an action that takes effort on your end. Be self-disciplined and pursue him daily. I’ll never forget what my high school track coach told me, “If you ask Him to show up, He will” and he has every. single. time.

Be still - In our fast paced society, where busyness is praised, it is unheard of to be still. Even if someone wants to be still, how do you do that? Does that mean to be physically still? If so, I’m in trouble because I am constantly tapping my foot, shifting my weight from one foot to another and everything in between. But I am reminded of Exodus 14:14 where it says, “The Lord will fight for you, and you only have to be still.” WHAT??? The Lord will fight my battles? He will fight off my worry, stress, fear, anger and all I have to do is be still? God is soooo good! Y’all, lay your burdens down and let God fight for you! Don’t hold onto whatever is hurting you. Nothing is too big or small for God! Jeremiah 32:27 says, “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” The answer is no. Commit to being still and allow God to fight your battles - it is so worth it.

Wait patiently - If you just laughed at this commandment, I am with ya, friend. It is so difficult for me to be patient because I love instant gratification. The flesh within all of us wants results instantly with as little effort as possible, but life does not work that way and neither does Jesus. The words that follow “be patient” are super important because it gives perspective of who we are waiting on… “for Him.” How dare we read this verse and think to ourselves, “hmm yeah I don’t think so. I am not going to be patient.” Whether we like it or not, we will have to wait because we cannot demand that Jesus comes right now, but the beauty in the waiting is how you’re waiting. I don’t know about you, but I am going to choose to be patient because He is worth it.

Refrain from anger - King David is one of the most powerful men that was part of the Israelite history. From killing Goliath with a pebble, writing 73 Psalms (including this one!), faithfully and fiercely pursuing Jesus, and being the great (x 28) grandfather of Jesus (Matthew 1:1-17). So, I think I am going to listen to the wisdom he gives us… refrain from anger. This is sometimes so hard. When people hurt you, you want to lash out and return the pain. I hate confrontation, so usually my anger looks like: “guess what so-and-so did to me!” and then follow it with a line of gossip where I usually slightly twist what actually happened to make the person who hurt me look worse. For you, it may look a little different, but the truth is that anger only puts you in bondage. Acknowledging that someone hurt you is important and bringing it to God is encouraged, but sis, don’t dwell on it! Satan wants you to pity yourself and turning anger into resentment.

Jesus! I love you so much and am soooo thankful for the Bible. It is full of encouragement, guidance and conviction. I pray that as we continue to pursue You, that we are blessed abundantly and stand in Your steadfast love! Amen! :)