Week 6 Psalm 37
The psalm begins with a counter-intuitive phrase: don’t worry about the wicked. I start thinking about that because fretting over evil actors is as natural as breathing. I sift through the passage wondering what I can make of it…
First of all I realize that it’s a good reminder: “worrying doesn’t do you any good”. None whatsoever. And even if that advice isn’t really an actionable-step it might be a pre-action necessity.
Next (and practically speaking) I think that if evil people doing evil activities worries me then I can help myself by reducing my daily exposure to Fret Promoters (for instance media). Sure…this might be a head-in-the-sand approach. But if selectively having my head-in-the-sand produces a net-benefit then I won’t worry.
Third…I need to realize and accept that evil-doing might be a long game. David said that eventually the evil that’s going around will come around: like grass (evil people) soon fade away…they soon whither (of course David’s ‘soon’ might not seem to be soon enough for me).
Fourth…I maybe have to recalibrate my whole normal reaction to evil-doing. I think I slide into assuming that corrupt & evil & violating actions are not how-things-should-be. But then what if I realize that in reality that’s how they actually are? What if in an evil world evil action is the norm? It doesn’t really help much to fret over reality.
Anyway…when push-comes-to-shove maybe my goal is patience while I wait for a renovated world.
Note: quote from Psalm 37:1 2 (NLT)