Psalm Chapter 37

Psalm 37: The Patience of the Righteous

This is a psalm for everyone who has ever watched a scoundrel prosper and felt their stomach tighten with something uncomfortably close to envy. David, who was old when he wrote it, does not offer pious theory but the testimony of a long life: "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." The counsel is deceptively simple — fret not, trust, delight, commit, rest, wait — and every verb is harder than it sounds, because each one requires the surrender of that most cherished human possession: the right to manage outcomes. "The meek shall inherit the earth," David promises, and we nod and wonder if we believe it. But notice the image tucked into the middle: "I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not." The tree that looked so permanent could not even be found. Meanwhile, the steps of the good man — not his leaps, not his grand achievements, but his ordinary steps — are ordered by the Lord. God is apparently as interested in the direction of our Tuesday as in the fate of empires.

00:00 Fret Not, Trust and Delight
01:00 The Meek Shall Inherit
02:00 The Sword Turned Inward
03:00 Steps Ordered by the Lord
04:00 The Green Bay Tree That Vanished