Supernal Sunday – Nov. 8, 2020 Edition

This is a difficult time in the USA, and everywhere we look the media is telling us about the evildoers and their successes. As with any situation, though, the first and best thing to do is look to the Father to comfort our fears and bolster our courage.

The Word is arguably the clearest way that God speaks to us today so I turn there first for guidance. And finding Psalm 37 has been a balm for my troubled soul. In prayer we can feel His touch and know communion with Him; in the Word He shares with us just what we need to hear at just the right time. What a privilege!

There are many special treasures in Psalm 37, probably the best-known is v. 4: “Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.”* In this chapter David is reassuring the people that God will be faithful to protect them. He also tells them/us what eternity will be like for the wicked as well as the righteous, and gives example of things the wicked do as opposed to how the righteous behave.

It isn’t popular these days to point out sin, to state the obvious when people are wicked, or to compare the wicked with the righteous. It is quite obvious in our current world that the mindset “we are all the same, nobody is better than anybody else, we’re born good and are all equal” is a given, and anyone who disagrees is wrong. (Indeed the only way to achieve wickedness is to point out sin, it seems!) But this psalm is very clear that the very mindset that drives the world today is itself in grave error. For the wicked, these words bring conviction and defensiveness. For the righteous these words bring peace and comfort.

Overall this is a psalm that not only comforts me, but also reminds me to search my own heart, and reignites hope for my own eternity. When it appears that evil is overwhelming us we can know from Psalm 37 and elsewhere in Scripture that God sees, He isn’t surprised, He has a plan, and He always cares for His children. And that is the greatest source of comfort that we can know.

*And, because context is so important, here is the rest of that thought: “Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, And your justice as the noonday. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; Do not fret—it only causes harm.”

I bolded the commands to us because there is a whole lot more to it than the commonly quoted 4th verse, which is only part of the whole. For one thing, there are also other promises from our Father – which I italicized – as well as what is expected from us (bold).

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