“Repaying our trust?”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Thursday, April 18, 2024
Psalm 37 (Forward, p. 80) CEV p. 576
I’m afraid that I’m not quite as certain, or glib, in spouting off the manifold benefits of trusting in the Lord. (Five times he mentions our need to trust God). He mentions this, yes, but I’m not so sure that the things he mentions will always happen:
“Trust the Lord and live right! The land will be yours, and you will be safe. Do what the Lord wants, and he will give you your heart’s desire” (verses 3-4).
“Let the Lord lead you and trust him to help. Then it will be as clear as the noonday sun that you were right” (verses 5-6).
“Be patient and trust the Lord. Don’t let it bother you when all goes well for those who do sinful things. Don’t be angry or furious. Anger can lead to sin. All sinners will disappear, but if you trust the Lord, the land will be yours” (verses 7-9).
These are the verses where the psalmist explicitly mentions trusting in God. And what are the benefits? Safety, our ‘heart’s desire’, personal affirmation, God’s leading, and interestingly ‘the land’ (the land will be yours), all will be ours. It sounds pretty ‘fantastic’—in the sense of almost being unbelievable.
But then notice what else is predicated upon trusting, even if it isn’t explicitly mentioned as such:
“Those who obey the Lord are daily in his care, and what he has given them will be theirs forever. They won’t be in trouble when times are bad, and they will have plenty when food is scarce” (verses 18-19).
“As long as I can remember, good people have never been left helpless, and their children have never gone begging for food. They gladly give and lend, and their children turn out good” (verses 25-26).
“Trust the Lord and follow him. He will give you the land, and you will see the wicked destroyed” (verse 34).
Here he mentions that they will be spared from trouble and starvation, see the defeat and destruction of one’s enemies, and even have the blessing of children ‘who turned out right.’ I suggest that this sounds fantastical simply because it doesn’t square with reality. We read of undeserved suffering, unrequited suffering, in the lives of Lot and Jeremiah. And then there is the roll call of faith of Hebrews 11 which lists a number of individuals who had faith—who most certainly trusted in God, and yet suffered grievously. And likewise, there is the apostle Paul (see 2 Corinthians 11:23b-29 for an account of some of the things he suffered for the Lord). And then, of course, there is our Lord Himself.
Indeed, what one finds throughout the Scriptures are individuals who are committed to trusting God no matter what, who are committed to trusting God, staying loyal to God, even if God doesn’t come through for them, even if God does not seem to repay their trust. You have Job, who in spite of terrible calamities and afflictions, is still able to say, “though he slay me, yet will I trust him” (Job 13:15.) And you have the three youths in the burning furnace of King Nebuchadnezzar, replying to him,” Your Majesty, we don’t need to defend ourselves. The God we worship can save us from you and your flaming furnace. But even if he doesn’t, we still won’t worship your gods and the gold statue you have set up” (Daniel 3:16-18). They are committed to trusting God, serving God, obeying God, even if there doesn’t seem to be anything in it for them. And so should it be for each of us, for we know that this earthly life isn’t the be all and end all of things. We know that God is faithful to us, no matter what we see or experience just now. Thanks be to God.
Forward notes: “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” (verse 7).
“Waiting in line. Waiting for an appointment. Waiting in traffic. Waiting for repair service. Waiting on hold. Waiting for the results of a medical test. I wait but not patiently. Our explosion of technology and the availability of online resources make it easy to get results, news, or information quickly. Either way, when I wait or attempt to access information, I often feel frenzied.
“The psalm for today refers to a frenzied state. Evildoers get cut off. Fretting leads to wickedness, plotting against the righteous, and gnashing at them. But smack dab in the middle of these awful verses, the psalmist suggests that we be still before God and wait patiently.
“In this Easter season, we celebrate the ministry and resurrection of Jesus. Waiting, sometimes frenzied, we share a spiritual journey with other individuals and communities, also waiting and sometimes frenzied, as we affirm God’s presence in the world today. At our church’s Eucharist, the celebrant says a prayer attributed to Saint Augustine, ‘Remember who you are, become what you receive.’ Let us be still and know God’s presence.”
Moving Forward: “How is waiting with God’s presence an active experience?”