The Lord Delivers the Righteous
Psalm 37:23-40 – Part Two
Interestingly, the pervasive promise of Psalm 37 should free us from
jealousy. If we truly accept the
guarantee that God will always provide for the righteous and their children
will never be found begging bread, then we have no need to compare our
circumstances with anyone else. It does
not matter if our neighbor constantly buys new cars. It should not arouse suspicion if our
coworkers show up each day in new outfits.
It should be immaterial if our relatives regale us with the fascinating
details of recent exotic trips each time we speak with them. All of these experiences compel us to say
“Praise the Lord.” We can genuinely and
freely be thankful for someone else’s blessings. We know that God will not leave us or forsake
us. We know that He will not forget
us. God is not a respecter of
persons. Therefore, observing the good
fortune of others should not dishearten us.
Instead, we rejoice with them for we know that our turn will come
relative to our characters, choices, circumstances and consequences.
A good friend and colleague shares the necessity of staking in your
lane in order to win a race. Many
runners make the fatal mistake of looking to the left and to the right in the
midst of a competitive race. That small
amount of time and effort to analyze what their competitors are doing actually
costs them the race. Rather, they ought
to stay in their lanes and focus unwaveringly upon the race that they are
running. Another common and dreadful
error that runners make is looking behind them to see if another runner is
gaining on them. Again, the energy and
attention required to assess another runner’s progress usually equates with the
difference of determining the winners and losers. This image from the practical world of track
and field resembles the race of life as we pursue our God given goals and
dreams. Should we fall prey to the
fallacy of constantly comparing ourselves to others, we will never be able to
devote our energies and abilities to our singular and unique purposes. Mostly, these comparisons result in jealousy
which wastes incredible amounts of time and resources. Yet, when we channel our abilities towards
making the very best effort of which we are capable, then we realize the
readily available divine favor and assistance that we have to succeed. The Lord delivers the righteous.
This passage of this immortal contains numerous divine promises of
deliverance. “If the Lord delights in a
man’s way, he makes his steps firm.”
Incidentally, the Lord would only find pleasure and grant His approval
to a person’s choices if his or her character honors the holy love and
character of Almighty God. The Bible
declares that God is light and in Him there is no darkness. His holy essence cannot be contaminated by
evil. As a consequence, a person would
have to respect God’s perfect purity, love and majesty in order to receive His
sanction. Nonetheless, as a righteous
person, a man or woman has the assurance that God will lead him or her toward
making the most beneficial and bountiful choices. As a matter of fact, the psalmist states
definitively that the Lord makes such a person’s steps firm. Accordingly, “though he stumble, he will not
fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.”
What an amazing promise that this twenty-third verse offers! God promises to redeem the mistakes and
failures of the righteous. Even if our
self-centered fears, self-seeking motives and limitless egos combine to
eventuate into drastic errors, the Lord will redirect us toward His
purposes. Practically speaking, He helps
us to find the lessons in our errors.
When we humble ourselves to reach the instruction of His discipline, He
prevents us from falling. He prevents
our misfortunes from becoming fatal. Out
of His lovingkindness, He catches us before we crash and harm ourselves.
The twenty-fifth verse is the one that we remember mostly. Often, one overhears people paraphrasing some
part of it. Whereas the psalmist assures
us that God will not forsake the righteous and their children will not be found
begging for bread, a stark analysis of the world leads one to question
significantly and appropriately the confidence of the Psalter. The protracted violence, military conflicts
and terrorism of the Middle East makes one
wonder about this biblical assurance.
Can Palestinian Christians recite this verse with the flippant manner in
which American Christians do as they profess that they are blessed and highly
favored of the Lord? Consider further
the genocide of Darfur and the Sudan Somalia Africa
suffers from the epidemic of HIV/AIDS.
More specifically, we must grapple with the hard reality that millions
of the children of God go to bed each night hungry. Should you travel to another country in the
developing world, you see children begging for their daily bread. Needless to say, I could cite countless other
examples in today’s world that contradict the divine promise that the Psalter
posits. Nevertheless, I allude to these
difficult ironies to shock us into thinking about the difficulty of resolving
the world in which we live and biblical promises that we often verbalize robotically.
How do we reconcile these inconsistencies? This question is another version of the age
old theological dilemma of theodicy. How
do we resolve the existence of an all powerful, all kind, ever-present and all
knowing Supreme Being with the evil in the world? On a more practical level, how do we assert
the statements of scripture with integrity and intellectual respectability
given the geopolitical dynamics, social-political and social-economic realities
that seem to eradicate the notion?
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