Psalm 37:2 Grass

On a hot July afternoon, I watched, appropriately socially distanced, while my 13-year-old grandson mowed our lawn. He looked tired and hot, not at all surprising since he'd been mowing various lawns all day in low-90s temperatures. He had wanted to earn money of his own this summer, and his parents wanted him to learn the value of working hard to earn that money.

I don't do hardly any of the mowing any more, because my deteriorating knee just doesn't deal well with the mechanics of pushing the "self-propelled" mower. My wife mows occasionally, but as the temperatures heat up, her body reacts poorly to the weather and doesn't need to be pushing a mower around either.

And so we offered to pay Ethan to mow our yard sometimes this summer. I think he charges us less than he might someone else, but we pay him more than he initially asked. And it's good to see him so regularly during this long season of the pandemic's enforced isolation.

We also get to see his parents, because someone has to drive the truck to bring the 13-year-old and his mower. They also do more than their share of work while he's mowing. Our son makes the rounds with the weed eater and he and our daughter in law have worked hard over the past few weeks to clean up the large amount of sticks and leaves accumulated in our near-forest backyard.

Cooter commented that July was starting to be like it normally is in Missouri. He's seeing signs on all the lawns they visit of the grass becoming sun-bleached and dry.

Like the grass, all three generations of this family are growing older. Karen and I are like the grass and vines and weeds that are declining under the summer's heat. Cooter, as a little boy, didn't really care for short pants. He would try to tug them down to cover his legs.  Now he's 35, an astonishing age for someone who was once so small.

Even Ethan and his younger brother Jude are growing older at a speed I can hardly keep up with. They'll be grown and gone and approaching the time of withering like grass themselves, long after the thresher has harvested my soul.

It happens to all of us, to the best of us and the worst of us.

Do not fret because of those who are evil
   or be envious of those who do wrong;
for like the grass they will soon wither,
   like green plants they will soon die away.

Psalm 37:1-2

Why would Ethan fret about the grass and what new challenges it's going to throw at him next week when it comes time to mow again? Our lawn is not going to suddenly develop sentience and plot to do us harm, like in that silly movie, The Happening. It's just grass. Grass does what grass does.

People do what people do. Evil people are going to do wrong, because that's the direction they've trained their hearts to lean. People who have trained their hearts toward good will do good, and should keep their minds and actions focused on doing good.

Our grass is just going to keep being grass, even after Etan mows. It'll keep being what it is until it dies. 

And it will die.

Ethan will also die. But before that time, he'll find greater things to train his heart toward. Over the past two or three years, as he's passed through those most formative waking up years of 11-13, we've all - his parents and grandparents - watched the scatter-brained boy begin to seek out just who it is God is training him up to be.

And we saw, and it is good.

Psalm 37:1 Envy

They say there's a heaven for those who will wait
  Some say it's better but I say it ain't
I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
  The sinners are much more fun
You know that only the good die young
  I tell ya
Only the good die young
Only the good die young

    Billy Joel, Only the Good Die Young

Recent polls and studies agree that a majority of young people who have grown up in the church will leave the church within a few short years after finishing high school. For some reason we're not hanging on to our kids.

One reason is that the churches where they're growing up are not preparing them to think critically and to be intellectually prepared for the challenges they face outside the cocoon of their youth.

"We need to think more clearly, to teach more clearly. We need to stop using words like liberal and conservative and, instead, talk about things like critical thinking in the church. We should be talking about how to sort through what’s biblical and what’s not. How to “think Christian” is really, really important. " (David Embree, The State of Campus Ministry, Christian Standard Magazine)

Another common reason for young people leaving the church, perhaps greater than being ill-prepared intellectually, is the lure of the culture of the "unchurched".

Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong...

Psalm 37:1

Even those millennials and Generation Z who do stick with church involvement are highly likely to accept and adopt the philosophy and lifestyle of the post-modern, post-church world at large in which they spend their lives

They (we) look at the life-in-a-box rules taught by previous generations of Christians and then look out through the stained glass windows at the seeming freedom and fun of the rest of the world and think, "I want what they have."

Envy is not only wanting what someone else has, but being willing to go out of your way and compromise your otherwise pure principles to take it for yourself. It's usually thought of in terms of stealing or cheating or even committing violence against someone in order to take what they have.

In the context of young believers envying the lives of their unbelieving peers, they're willing to steal from the lost people around them the opportunity to see God-flavors and God-colors of a life lived intentionally for the Lord.

Maybe they're willing to make that selfish choice because the church in which they grew up never actually set concrete examples and trained them in how to be salt and light.

Most of them, having made that choice to be a n imitator of those who do wrong rather than an imitator of Christ, leave the church altogether. A lot of those continue to think of themselves as believers of a sort. They're the ones who will shrug and answer "sure" when asked if they still believe. But they want their cake and to eat the forbidden fruit, too.

Psalm 37 provides a curriculum for teaching and leading young believers in a better way to make choices about the bert way to live.

Psalm 37:1 Evildoers

Who is evil? Who are the evildoers?

In Romans 1:29-31, Paul refers to "they invent ways of doing evil." Such people are lumped in with a list that includes not only generally agreed upon evils (murder, God-haters), but also things most of us would have to admit to commiting at some time in our lives (gossip, disobey parents).

Solomon, in Ecclesiastes 9:12, warns about the danger of being ensnared into the jumbled net of the evil around us.

Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come:
As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare,
so people are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.

Satan is at work in this world to mess with us, to get us to become evil like him. His primary tactic is to lure us into getting involved in things that aren't good but don't seem to be actually evil. From there, it's  a slippery slope.

In my own heart, I know the greatest evil to which I've fallen prey is the temptation to see myself as 'good", compared to THOSE evil people.

“People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us... It's people who claim that they're good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.”

  Gregory Maguire, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

He's right. Those EVIL PEOPLE are no worse than you or me, but not because it's okay to be evil. They're no worse than us because we also have evil in our hearts.

This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead.

Ecclesiastes 9:3

Nurturing evil in your heart leads to psychological problems, to “madness in our hearts”. Not just the sort of evil madness that leads to murder, rape, or criminal activities, but also heart-driven anger, jealousy, impatience, selfishness. Once evil sets its roots in you heart, it bears fruit through misdirecting your energy and focus.

Don’t swim around in the pool of evil that builds up in your heart. Instead, intentionally engage in positive acts of goodness, thereby overcoming the evil that wants to take over your heart.

Therefore the prudent keep quiet in such times, for the times are evil. Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.

Amos 5:13-15

The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.

Matthew 12:35

And then there's Psalm 37.

Do not fret because of those who are evil . . . 

Psalm 37:1 

David begins by telling us not to get pulled in by the evil around you, pulled into worry, frustration, anger. Don't get sucked into responding to evil with evil.

He goes on to list about two dozen positive, concrete actions we can take as our righteous and productive response to evil times and evil people.

Try this as a first step: dwell on one verse from Psalm 37 each week. Read it and memorize it.

Repeat it to yourself when you're following the news reports each day, and think creatively about how the week's verse provides practical advice for responding intentionally to evil times.

Repeat the verse of the week to yourself every time you're considering posting something on social media or engaging in conversation. Make sure your public comments reflect the Word you're hiding in your heart, rather than the evil that's trying to invade your heart.

40 verses, 40 weeks.  Do it in 40 days, if you prefer.

The change in your life will be amazing.