Psalm 37. Absolutely one of my most favorite chapters in all of Scripture. For years, the verse I was most (mainly) familiar with was verse 4. Perhaps it is treasured by you, as well. Certainly it is beautiful truth - Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.
The verse is Scripture so it is absolutely truth. But I have concerns with how it is heralded, singled out, clung to as a promise to get what we want. We must be cautious when we take a verse out of its surroundings. It’s highly possible we will build our own doctrine on it, doctrine that serves our own wants and wishes, doctrine that excludes the whole counsel of God. With this verse, I find we often gloss over the “delight yourself in the Lord” phrase and camp out on the “and He will give you the desires of your heart”. We begin to see God as our Divine and powerful genie in a bottle, ready to grant our wishes and in reality, indulge our flesh.
Not the meaning of the verse. At all.
So , today, we are going to enlarge the context and gain a clearer picture of what this verse means.
Let’s look at the preceding verses - Do not fret because of evildoers, be not envious toward wrongdoers. For they will wither quickly like the grass, and fade like the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.
And then the three following - Commit your way to the Lord; trust also in Him and He will do it. And He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment 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 w ho carries out wicked schemes.
Context provides us much clarity, doesn’t it?
Here are the things I see in the whole picture:
This psalm is a response to feeling like the wicked are “winning” and you are not. The feeling is fretful, anxious, and envy. You want what they have and it just doesn’t seem fair.
The counsel to combat this feeling is expressed throughout the psalm and especially in these first few verses.
The counsel is this: Do not worry that you don’t have what you won’t and certainly don’t envy the wicked because they are not going to be “winning” for long. They and the happiness you envy now will be gone soon.
Instead of fretting about what you lack and feeling irritated about what others do have, trust in the Lord. Get to know His character so you can trust His goodness, His faithfulness, His provision, and His love for you. Trust Him!
As an outpouring of that trust, do good! Obey His commandments, bless others, and keep waiting patiently, trusting that whatever happens to you has been engineered by His loving, faithful and mighty hand to be exactly what you need for supreme joy.
The last part of verse three might be my most favorite part of the whole chapter - dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Dwell in the land - don’t try to squirm out of your current situation. Trust that where He has you is where He wants you, no matter what it looks like to you. The word for “dwelling” carries a connotation of permanence and that implies contentment. The message is clear - we must find joy in the place where we are, rather than always looking forward to when things will change, when we can “move on”. And just “dwelling” is not all we do - we are to cultivate faithfulness! Some might interpret that as “bloom where you are planted”. The meaning is clear - do not wait until your circumstances are “better” for your obedience to begin. Follow His commands, find ways to bless others, be faithful where you are. I love that Scripture uses the word “cultivate” - rather than just saying “be faithful” , God says “cultivate it”. That communicates a process. We can’t just turn on a switch and be faithful - it takes time and intentionality, just like planting a field and waiting for the harvest. Cultivate faithfulness. I love that!
Then we get to the beloved verse! After we are not fretting but rather trusting in the divine goodness of the Lord towards us, doing good to others, experiencing contentment rather than striving to get to where we think we want to go, and practicing steadfast obedience, then we can delight ourselves in Who God is. Not what He gives us but Who He is. And I AM, who knows us more fully than we know ourselves, gives us what our hearts are longing for. Which is His Presence, Himself. We mistakenly label this deep desire as wanting other things. We think we long for a relationship or financial ease or a change in location. But what we really want is HIM and we find those longings fulfilled as we delight in Who He is.
As we delight in Him, we want to follow Him. Our “way” - our behavior - is to please Him, no longer ourselves. And He accomplishes that in us - He transforms us, brings forth our righteousness as the light. Hallelujah!!
So, when someone chants Psalm 37: 4 to you as a “promise” that God will give you what you want, you can enlighten them. Urge them to cease striving, don’t envy, trust God instead and plant a crop of steadfast obedience that will provide a tremendous harvest of righteousness and blessing!