Month: April 2026

Week 16  Psalm 41

At some point in the past I underlined parts of paragraph #1 in red. I liked it then. And I still like it now.
In fact I think that those first three verses could be their own standalone psalm (it’d definitely be a short psalm – but longer than 117). The main reason I’d have for hiving it off is because it doesn’t seem to have any obvious connection to the rest of the psalm. That second section – verses 4-12 – is David’s prayer for help (he’s in the middle of a bunch of adversity where his enemies (and even his friends) are ganging-up on him).
Maybe I’m missing something. But the only correlation I can see is that: a) it’s a good thing for people to help people-in-need (1-3) and b) since David is currently in the people-in-need category the Lord could help bail him out (4-12). But I don’t like that explanation very much. It seems forced – a bit like trying to get a round peg into a square hole.
For me it makes just as much sense to treat paragraph #1 all by itself:
Blessed are those who have regard for the weak; the Lord delivers them in times of trouble. The Lord protects and preserves them – he does not give them over to the desire of their foes. The Lord sustains them on their sickbed and restores them from their bed of illness.

Note: quote from Psalm 41:1-3 (NIV)

Week 16  Psalm 38

Let’s say I’ve got a State of Mental & Spiritual Health & Wellbeing Index. Let’s say the scale registers a 10 (for positive wellbeing) and a 1 (for negative wellbeing). If I was assessing psalm 38 on that scale I’d rate it near the bottom – maybe a 2.
There are a couple of things going on with David.
On one hand he’s loaded down thinking about his own moral guilt & inadequacy. He says:
• there is no soundness in my bones because of my sin
• my guilt has overwhelmed me
• I groan in anguish of heart
• I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin.
So David is facing an internal dilemma – a crushing sense of guilt that he can’t get rid of.
But then there’s a second thing going on – his relationships with people:
• My friends and companions avoid me
• Those who want to kill me set their traps (and) talk of my ruin.
However (and it’s a pretty big however) in spite of his adverse circumstances David takes the high road as best he can:
• All my longings lie open before you, Lord
• Lord, I wait for you
• I seek only to do what is good.
I’d give David high marks for doing what he can do in the face of his bad fortunes. So I’m surprised that by the end of the psalm – and this makes it an oddity – there’s no obvious resolution. David is left hanging.

Note: quotes from Psalm 38:3 4 8 18 11 12 9 15 20 (NIV)

Week 16  Psalm 37

David’s subject matter is Good people & Bad people. He splits his time roughly 50:50 between the two. But his most useful advice is for the Good ones.
Because self-interested Bad people tend to evolve toward taking hostile action against Good people David offers suggestions to Good people.
First…what not to do:
•  don’t fret about Bad people
•  don’t envy Bad people’s success
•  don’t get angry.
Then a couple of pieces of positive advice:
• first he says to trust in the Lord and do good (a bit later he adds: do good not evil)
• secondly he says to rest and wait patiently (and later: rest and keep to the Lord’s way).
David’s recommendations don’t really solve the obvious problem. There are still plenty of Bad people all around who might eventually prey on Good people. What David does do is give me a short Recommendation List – an action plan for dealing with adversity.
So…when I’m backed into a corner by evil opponents and when my fretfulness & anxiety & anger are getting jacked up and when I realize that I can’t manage my outside world…then what? Then I turn in.
Trust the Lord
Do what’s right & good
Be patient – settle-in & wait
Keep to the Lord’s way.
David’s recommendations are counterintuitive. And they’re difficult to practice routinely. They sound like exercises that are intended to help me start fundamentally reformatting my normal reactions to my external environment.

Note: quotes from Psalm 37:1 7 8 3 27 7 34 (NIV)

Week 15  Psalm 37

In Psalm 37 David splits his time fairly equally between talking about the two main groups of people in the world. They are: a) Bad people and b) Good people.
Out of the 40-verses in the psalm approximately 20-verses talk about Bad people and the other 20-verses are about Good people.
I was interested in what David said about the consequences of a Bad person living a Bad life. (I wasn’t too interested in finding immediate results since it’s pretty clear that a Bad person can have some pretty decent results even though being bad. I was more interested in the longer-term repercussions of Bad living.)
David mentions maybe a dozen and a half products of a Bad life (some of them are repeaters). He says that Bad people will:
wither like green plants
soon die away
be destroyed
be no more…will not be found
have their swords pierce their own hearts
have their power broken
perish…they will go up in smoke
pass away and be no more.
A couple of the repercussions David mentions are a bit vague (for example they will not be found). But the majority are definitive & decisive – death destruction & complete disappearance.
It’s discouraging seeing examples of how some people get-away-with-murder. So 37 is a reminder that people getting-away-with-murder is a temporary condition. And since temporary isn’t permanent – eventually temporary ends.

Note: quotes from Psalm 37: 2 9 10 13 15 17 20 36 (NIV)