Stability in the Stillness
Daily Reading: (Psalm 37:1,3-5,7): “Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong. Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways.”
The Psalm starts off with a very common struggle we all have in moments when someone who is not a very good person has something great happen to them while we don’t seem to have the same success. In life we can easily become envious when we see things happen for other people. When I have become envious I have stopped trusting God and feeding on His faithfulness (Psalm 37:3). The opposite of envy we see is faith, or trust (verse 3), or delighting in God (verse 4), or rolling your burdens onto the Lord.
The reward that comes from trusting God is that you will pasture in a land that is green. Your desires will be met (Psalm 37:3-4). As you delight in and trust in God your desires begin to shift. Before you might have been envious of those who are evil, but now you see them through eyes of compassion and realize how bankrupt they really are.
Verse four is an amazing promise because envy usually arises from not having a desire of your heart. You will see somebody that has something that you wish you had, and you’ll desire it to the point it can lead to envy. So, the best way to fight the temptation to envy is to go to the promise of Psalm 37:4 and say, “Now Lord, you have made a promise to me in verse four. You say that, if I will put my delight in you, you will give me the desires of my heart. So I am now going to delight in you for you always keep your promises.” Trusting in God sufficiently enables you to rest in who He is for you and this will have a profound effect on the kind of desires you must have met in order to be content.
“Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this.”
Be still or rest in the Lord. Let God work in your life. The opposite of trust can be movement or work. There is stability to be found in the stillness because I am allowing God to mold my desires to be the desires He has for me. Envy is removed as I build my trust in Him. In the stillness and the rest I need, I am leaving the whole matter with Him without being anxious as to the result. Another definition here for stillness is silence. Why is silence important when you have a dialogue going on with another? It allows the other party a chance to respond where you will hear them. In the silence I am waiting patiently for His response.
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