Great Is Thy FaithfulnessНамуна

FEED ON HIS FAITHFULNESS

Psalm 37 was written to Jewish settlers who had moved into newly acquired lands during David’s expansion of the kingdom of Israel. The Lord had promised to give Israel all the land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River (Joshua 1:4), but the Israelites had possessed only a portion of the allotted territory. David pushed Israel’s boundaries outward, and Jewish citizens settled down in the newly occupied regions.

Sometimes God sends us into new and unfamiliar circumstances. We want to make advancements in life and experience all God has for us. But it’s no easy task.

David wrote Psalm 37 as an instruction manual. I’ve been encouraged by the eight instructions found at the beginning of this psalm. Why not open your Bible to this passage and treat the opening verses as a personal Bible study?

Here are God’s eight instructions about the onward transitions of life (from the New King James Version)

1. “Do not fret” (v. 1). New experiences can bring anxiety, but David tells us three times in this psalm to cast off fretting (vv. 1, 7, 8). If you’re prone to worry (as I am), then the next instructions tell us how to minimize fretting.

2. “Trust in the Lord” (v. 3). Trust is the mental determination to emphasize God’s promises, as great as they are, over our problems, as great as they seem.

3. “Do good” (v. 3). When we trust the Lord with our fears, we take the focus off our obsessions and get busy serving Him with the next thing we can find to do.

4. “Feed on His faithfulness” (v. 3). To feed on something is to devour it, to chew it up, to swallow it, to get it inside of you, to digest it, to fill yourself with it, to internalize it. Our mental and spiritual diet should be rich in material about the person of God and His infinite faithfulness.

5. “Delight yourself . . . in the Lord” (v. 4). To delight in something means we experience a high degree of pleasure or enjoyment in it. This verse says if we delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us the desires we should have in our hearts. He will take His desires for us and make them our own— desires that He Himself will fulfill.

6. “Commit your way to the Lord” (v. 5). The word commit means to totally entrust something valuable into the care and keeping of another, who will take care of it for you. You can commit anything to Him— your opportunities, your plans, your children, your burdens, your future, your day, your difficulties, your dreams.

7. “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him” (v. 7). The word rest implies a relaxation of our nerves. And when we want Him to work in some area of life and He doesn’t, we have to trust that He will do exactly what’s best exactly when it’s best. The interval between our wanting and His working is called waiting— and that’s where faith is built.

8. “Do not fret” (v. 7). And so we come full circle. This is the cycle of peace, spinning around God’s faithful nature and going before us into lands still to be possessed. You’re being carried into the next phases of life by the foot soldiers of God’s promises, and not one of them will ever stumble.

So “do not fret—it only causes harm” (v. 8 NKJV).

P.S. Throughout my writings, I’ve encouraged people to memorize Scripture. Psalm 37:1-8 was my memory project for several months last year, and I’m still going back and reinforcing it. To memorize a passage, start with the first verse and say it aloud. I walk around the room and read it as though preaching: “Do not fret because of evildoers.” I might repeat it twenty times. The next day I’ll do the same, usually at the end of my daily devotions. Soon it starts to get into my mind; and if I’m watching the news and become agitated by some group causing trouble, I say aloud: “Do not fret because of evildoers.” When I have the first phrase halfway learned, I add the next: “Nor be envious of the workers of iniquity.” It took me a few months, but now I can close my eyes and quote Psalm 37:1-8, which has worked wonders on my nerves.

Far above all finite comprehension is the unchanging faithfulness of God. Everything about God is great, vast, incomparable. He never forgets, never fails, never falters, never forfeits His Word. —A.W. Pink