Psalm 37:8 Refrain from anger & Turn away from wrath

Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret—it leads only to evil.

Psalm 37:8

David brings us back to the Put Off/Put On theme he's employed throughout this Psalm. 

So far, he's focused mostly on the characteristics and actions we need to “Put-On” if we want to successfully "put off" fretting and envying in response to wicked people.

• Actively, whole-heartedly trust in the Lord
• Intentionally do good
• Seek out ways to serve God no matter where he has put you
• Find and express genuine delight in your life with the Lord
• Commit wholly to that life
• Be still rather than leaping into hasty action
• Wait patiently for the Lord to take care of things

But the "put off" part is equally important. By intentionally removing the harmful habits from our lives, we create a vacuum which our newly acquired righteous habits can fill. This works much better than just passively expecting spiritual transformation to just happen.

Many spiritual or religious people have picked up a common attitude toward the Psalms. It's poetry, they think. And most people think the proper approach to poetry is to give it a light reading and briefly bask in whatever emotional response it prompts. 

And so, the average person reads Psalm 37 and thinks, Wow, that’s cool. And they move along with life, completely lacking in any thought of intentionally making real changes in their life as a result of what they've just read. 

But that's the problem David is writing about. Instead of letting your emotions control your response to the evil actions of wicked people, find a constructive way to respond in a more positive way.

Let your gentleness be known to all. The Lord is near. Philippians 4:5

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. James 1:19-20

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:31-32

The intolerance and quick anger of Christians is certainly evident to non-believers. In fact, polls and surveys consistently show it's one of the chief characteristics people associate with Christians. 

If you intentionally do the hard work of putting off your anger and wrath, replacing it with a disciplined of gentle spirit, listening ear, and active kindness, it will be evident to non-believers.

Psalm 37:7 Don't focus on schemes

 

Do not fret when people succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes

Psalm 37:7

Our word schemes is a translation of the Hebrew mezzimah, which describes a person's thought processes and the resulting ideas and plans. Almost always it's used in reference to warped or misguided thinking that leads to wicked or evil actions.

Paul uses a similar term in a similar way in 2 Corinthians 2:10-11

Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.

The Greek word translated as schemes is noēmata. It also refers to the end result of a thought process. It's a favorite word of Paul's in II Corinthians, used in both positive (10:5) and negative (3:14; 4:4; 11:3) ways.

It's not at all hard to understand the concept of a person's messed up way of thinking about things when you see it at work in someone else, as David is doing in Psalm 37.

I experience this almost every day when I scan my social media timelines and see the wildest ideas and most unbelievable theories and so-called "facts" posted or shared - and this by both strangers and some of my friends.

I will admit this to be the one thing that frustrates me most and makes me want to fret and burn with anger. And yes, I sometimes struggle with envy at the attention these ill-conceived notions receive, and the popularity of such ridiculous viewpoints.

I'm not talking about opinions I just happen to disagree with. One of my chief principles is to not assume I'm always right, and to respect the differing opinions of others. 

It's the gullibility and twisted up thought processes that lead to the most extreme ideas and inflammatory comments by my fellow believers that bother me most. They lack any evidence of critical thinking, and generally lack kindness, peacemaking, and any sense of Christ's mission.

As a friend recently said, I don't like the idea that I share a belief system with such people. They claim to have come to a reasoned belief in God and in Christ Jesus, all the while coming across like they believe even more strongly in conspiracy theories and twisted versions of reality. 

As I said, this is the part of Psalm 37 I personally struggle with most. So what am I to do? What are any of us to do if we want to win the war against such schemes?

First, follow David's advice: Don't fret. As we're learning in Psalm 37, the best way to not burn with anger at such things is to use that angry energy in more positive ways.  Trust in the Lord, do good for the Lord, dwell in the land, delight in the Lord, and so on.

Second, follow Paul's advice in II Corinthians 2, and be aware that Satan, the Father of Lies, is the true purveyor of fake news and every misdirected thought process. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, not against memes and Russian bots and trolls, but against the real ruler of this present darkness. Which only serves to demonstrate the importance,a gain, of following David's advice.

Third, follow Paul's advice in II Corinthians 10:4-5, where he uses that same term again:

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

We need to learn to rightly order our thoughts as people who claim to follow Christ. Take captive and cast aside any thought process that begins with any sort of political philosophy, financial gain, or personal agendas. Take captive and embrace thought processes ground in Christi's mission for us, which is to draw all people toward him.

Practice putting your mind to use as a tool for sharing the gospel, rather than sharing your theories.

Psalm 37:7 Wait patiently for the Lord

In my first year of working in hospital purchasing, I would finish my day at 4:30 each afternoon. My wife, who was a part time secretary and counselor at the Mizzou Christian Campus House, would get off at 5:00 each day. She had out only car with her.

I'd sit in the entranceway to the hospital for the wait, reading a book or just staring off into space. 

At ten 'til the hour, Lisa, a pharmacy worker I knew, would arrive in the entranceway and sit across from me. She was waiting for her boyfriend to pick her up. 

He was often late, at least according to her. And she would often complain. 

As I sat waited for Karen, Lisa would express her surprise at my refusal to complain about my wife being late.

I explained that she got off at 5, but then she had to navigate through rush hour traffic on campus and deal with two of the busiest commuter thoroughfares in the city. There was no way to predict, on any given day, the multitude of things that could slow the flow of traffic.

My waiting companion complained that her boyfriend would probably stop at a bar if the traffic annoyed him.

I would also explain that Karen's quitting time was somewhat unpredictable. 5:00 could bleed into 5:10 or even as late as 5:30 if there was something that came up at the last minute. Also, students frequently sought her out for counseling, and their needs didn't always match up to her work schedule.

Lisa groused about her guy likely getting into some pointless conversation at the bar and forgetting her altogether. She said I was an idiot for not trusting my wife.

That's just it, I told her. I do trust my wife. 

As she scoffed, I went on to say that, in my experience, there are two reasons why someone has trouble trusting other people. One is that they've been lied to, disappointed, and treated poorly so many times, they no longer think anyone is trustworthy. The other reason is that, deep down in their heart, they know they themselves aren't very trustworthy. They naturally assume everyone else is like them.

I recall the look in her eyes when I said that. It was like I had just landed a painful blow with a surgically sharp needle, directly into her heart.

Of course, she blustered and bluffed her way past it, returning to her complaints about her boyfriend.

Finally, I added one more point, saving the best for last.

Besides, I said, what else have I got to do with my time except wait? Sit here and talk to you?

Which, to me, was entirely the point. God had a reason for me to wait there day after day. And his reason was sitting across the entranceway from me.

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.

Psalm 37:7

When you're fretting about the unacceptable situation people have put you in, wait patiently for the Lord.

When other people - people less faithful than you - seem to be moving right along through life with no complications, wait patiently for the Lord.

When people around you have the wrong attitude, the wrong opinions, the wrong lifestyle, or the wrong politics, wait patiently for the Lord. 

Trust me, he has a plan. Trust him to make all things work out together for his purposes - in his own time.

Trust him to raise up people who can correct those problems. Trust him to provide opportunities for his people to be salt and light in the midst of a world filled with frustrating people. 

And while you're waiting, look across the room and there will almost always be someone else waiting.  You can be that person who just happens to have a salt shaker and a flashlight in your pocket, and God just happened to set up this divine appointment for you.  

What else have you got to do?

Psalm 37:7 Be still before the Lord

During the Spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led cities to shut down. Stores and restaurants and bars and theaters were closed. The only people working were those consider "essential" for the minimal  infrastructure of modern life. 

Each day during that time, I would put in my usual 8 hours on my job, but not at my office. Instead, I worked from the solitude of my own home, remoting in on the computer. Along with all of my co-workers, we went through the normal habits of the workday from the totally abnormal locations in our homes 

On the first day of my seclusion, I began a daily habit of leaving my desk at the end of the workday and walking out the door and directly to my car. I grew comfortable with working in solitude, but I never stopped wanting to finish it off by going for a drive and stretching my eyeballs. 

I never actually went anywhere, never actually got out of my car. I might visit the drive through window of a fast food joint for a brief, masked interaction with an essential purveyor of Diet Coke. But usually I just picked a direction and drove around my city.

During safer times, I was a rideshare driver for Uber and Lyft. My workplace was rush hour traffic and the hustle and bustle of pedestrians downtown and on the university campus. Now, the rush hour was reduced to a trickle of traffic and the sidewalks and streets of the center city were mostly barren.

The stillness was surreal.

Some writers and preachers quoted scriptures about Sabbath and stillness, pointing us to a God-given opportunity in the midst of this horrible natural calamity. Some believers took thesis advice to heart and intentionally took time to treasure the stillness.

From my perspective, however, it seems most American believers no longer feel comfortable lying down in green pastures for very long. They're easily bored sitting beside still waters. They've forgotten the connection between stillness and the restoration of the soul.

They need to be doing something, and not just going for a drive. What's the point of the drive if there's nowhere to go?

During a time of crisis, like 2020, our greatest compulsion is to be doing something about the problem. And in the 21st century, that usually means forming opinions and building verbal walls between those of us who are right and those others who are wrong.

Social media has turned out to be really bad at social distancing. If we had been content to embrace the stillness of the streets, we might have avoided rushing like panicked wildebeests onto the information highway.

Inexplicably, science became the ball in a game of political ping pong being played out online. Christians questioned each others' spirituality over disagreements on physical vs. virtual church, masks or no masks, and how it all impacted on politics.

Had we all chosen God's stillness, we might have been able to be still and know not only God, but to grasp His priorities in the midst of the furious pursuit of rightness.

When you find yourself fretting about the wrongness of others' opinions and envious of their followers, simply stop.  

Be still before the Lord

Psalm 37:7