Fret not yourself because of evildoers…Psa 37:1.

 Psalm 37 is one of several psalms that takes up this perennial problem among God’s people.  We become outraged when we see the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer, when we see a government ordained by God try to push Him out of our lives, when we see it run over the faithful in favor of any and all who claim He doesn’t exist.  Especially in today’s political environment, how many times do you find yourself caught up in arguments that leave you steamed and incensed, a fire burning in you to undo the wrong and fix the problem at any cost?  You see, that’s what “fret” means. 

 At first glance I pictured someone pacing the floor and wringing their hands.  “Fret” sounds so trivial.  The Hebrew word is anything but. 

 …And Cain was very wroth and his countenance fell, Gen 4:5.

 …And let not your anger burn…Gen 44:18.

 And my wrath shall wax hot…Ex 22:24.

   …And his anger was kindled...Num 11:1.

   …And all that are incensed against him…Isa 45:24.

 All these words are the same word translated “fret” in Psalm 37.  It is not a mild word, but it accurately describes the way so many of my brothers and sisters work themselves up into something they want to call righteous indignation over the way the world works.  Stop, the psalmist says by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  In fact, he says it three times in the first 8 verses of this psalm. 

 And why?  Because it robs God of the things we should be doing and the kind of people we ought to be.  It turns us into the very people we are complaining about.  The psalmist goes on to tell us exactly how to stop all this fretting.

 First of all, consider where the wicked will wind up in the near future.  They shall soon fade like the grass, v 2, and In just a little while the wicked shall be no more, v 10.  It may not seem “soon” to us.  It may seem more like “a long while,” but don’t we trust our Father to do what He says He will?  Fretting over these things is nothing more than a lack of faith in God to handle things, and denial of His control over this world. 

 In fact, the psalmist tells us to concentrate on God.  Trust in the Lord (v 3), delight yourself in the Lord (v4), commit your way to the Lord (v5), be still and wait for the Lord (v7).  I defy anyone to do those things and still be able to “fret” about the wickedness in the world.

 Then he tells us to use all that energy we’ve been expending to “do good” (v 3).  As long as we are busy with negative thoughts and actions, we will never do anything positive. 

 Then he gives us this little bit of wisdom:  Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil (v8).  Anger and wrath are sure paths to sin if you are not very, very careful.  It has been so since Cain and Abel.  As we saw in Gen 4:5 above,  Cain “fretted,” that is, he became “wroth,” and God told him that as long as he was in that mood “sin couches at the door.”  Satan has you right where he wants you when you let things of this world upset you so much that you become “hot” over them. 

 Zorn says, “Do not let what happens [with the wicked] interfere with your own faithfulness to God nor to your commitment to what is right.”  Christians do not mind the things of this world.  They set their hopes on the next world, on the eternal existence they have waiting for them.  What difference will all this injustice we keep fretting over make then?  You might as well believe you can take your wealth with you; you might as well believe in a physical thousand year kingdom on this earth; you might as well believe that your fretting will matter when you first feel the fires of Hell.

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting…” John 18:36

…for the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God. James 1:20

Dene Ward

We moved my mother so she would be near us the last few years of her life.  She has accumulated a lot in 87 years.  Even though she gave away at least half of her kitchen equipment and several pieces of furniture, as the movers traipsed in and out and the little house begin to fill, we no longer said, “In the living room,” or “In the back bedroom.”  By the end we were telling them, “Just find an empty corner and put it there.”  True, the house is 100 square feet less than the one she left, but that’s only a 10 x 10 room, perhaps one very small bedroom, and there seems to be many more times that much furniture we have yet to find a place for.  It appears that she will need to give away even more.

 I found myself thinking what I might give up when we need to leave this place we have lived for 33 years now.  Relatively small as family homes go, just 1330 square feet, we still managed to raise two boys to manhood and have accumulated far more than will fit in a house the size of my mother’s new one.  So what can I do without?

 The answer is really simple.  You can do without practically every possession you have.  Just look at what we take camping.  It’s a lot to take for a vacation, but for living, it’s practically nothing and we manage just fine for well over a week. 

 But maybe the answer is even easier than that.  What will you take in the moving van when you die?  Absolutely nothing.  It will be empty from front to rear, top to bottom.  Absolute essentials for this physical life may be the smallest and plainest amounts of food, clothing, and shelter, but for your spiritual life, all those things that you spend so much time picking out, caring for, and working to pay for are completely nonessential 

 So why do we spend so much time and energy on them?  Why do we care so much where we live and how it is decorated, what we wear and who designed it, what we eat and how good it tastes?  Could it be because we have forgotten this fundamental truth:  things of this life—possessions, status, wealth, connections—none of it matters to the wise child of God. 

Do they matter to you?  If you could not give them up, they matter more than you probably want to admit.  And if losing them would turn you into an emotional wreck, your priorities need a serious overhaul.

Today, think about that moving van on the day of your death.  It doesn’t really matter what you might like to put in it.  Your soul is going somewhere, but it won’t move an inch.

Be not afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house increases. ​For when he dies he will carry nothing away; his glory will not go down after him,Ps 49:16-17.

Dene Ward

As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.” Psalm 30:6.

 Several scholars believe Psalm 30 concerns the time David numbered the people of Israel and God punished them with a pestilence.  Before we get any further, let me caution you to read this in the 1 Chronicles 21 account and not just 2 Samuel 24.  You will get a much better portrait of David in Chronicles, one much more fitting a “man after God’s own heart.”

 But no matter when in David’s life this psalm was written, he tells us in verse 6 exactly what caused his problem.  In his prosperity he relied too much on himself.  Oh, he recognizes that his wealth and security came from God, v 7a, but he was so smug about it that God “hid His face.”  It was “my mountain,” not God’s, and if this is the time of the numbering, he was so full of himself that he sent Joab around not to take a full census, but to count “those who can wield a sword.”  He wanted to know how strong he was now that his foes were destroyed and his land was at peace, even though God told the people not to worry about such things, but to trust Him.  Even a man such as Joab knew that this numbering was not a good idea. 

 Here is what we as Americans steadfastly refuse to see, even Christians:  there is no temptation so great as prosperity.  Not just wealth, but security and peace along with it.  The scriptures are full of the warnings, but we heed them not.  What do we all want?  To get ahead.  What do we spend our lives doing?  Making money.  What do we dream about?  Being rich. 

 But hear this:  the New Testament does not speak of wealth in any way but as dangerous to our spiritual health. 

   Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth…For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  Matt 6:19,21.

 As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful, Matt 13:22.

 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God, Matt 19:24.

 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions, Luke 12:15.

 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs, 1 Tim 6:9,10.

 Why do we insist on standing in the rattlesnake’s nest?  I understand wanting your children to have more and better than you did, but I do not want their souls at risk, and from everything I see and read in the Book that really matters, that is what wealth will do to them.  If David can fall because of it, so can you and so can I and so can they.  Any time you feel secure in your wealth, in your preparations for the future or for “unforeseen circumstances,” be careful.  God may very well send you a reminder that you cannot count on anyone but Him, just as He did to David.  It may be the most painful reminder you ever get.

​​Do not toil to acquire wealth; be discerning enough to desist. When your eyes light on it, it is gone, for suddenly it sprouts wings, flying like an eagle toward heaven, Prov 23:4,5.

Dene Ward

When we kept our grandsons last spring, twenty-month-old Judah usually climbed into my lap every evening as we sat at the table for a final cup of coffee.  It took me a minute the first time his little hand reached out in the air, but finally I realized he was trying to catch the steam wafting over my mug, and was completely mystified when it disappeared between his chubby little fingers.
  A lot of people spend their lives trying to catch the steam, vapors that seem solid but disintegrate in their grasping hands.  They do it in all sorts of ways, and all of them are useless. 
  Do they really think they can stop time?  Over 11,000,000 surgical and nonsurgical cosmetic procedures were performed in this country in 2013, and we aren’t talking medically necessary procedures.  The top five were liposuctions, breast augmentations, eyelid surgeries, tummy tucks, and nose surgeries.*
  Then there are the folks chasing wealth and security.  Didn’t the recent Great Recession, as it is now called, teach them anything?  Others are striving to make a name for themselves.  These are usually the same folks who tell Christians how pathetic we are to believe that some Higher Power would ever notice we even exist on this puny blue dot in the universe.  Yet there they all go looking for fame, fortune, notoriety, beauty, or even their version of eternal life.  All of it is nothing more than a dream.  It will disappear, if not in a natural disaster or an economic meltdown, then the day they die—and they will die no matter how hard they try not to.  They are the ones grasping at dreams which are only a vapor that disappears in a flash.
  Our dream isn’t a dream at all.  It is a hope, which in the Biblical sense means it is all but realized.  Sin and death have been conquered by a force we can only try to comprehend, by a love we can never repay, and by a will we can but do our best to imitate.  Yet there it is, not a wisp of white floating over a warm porcelain mug, but a solid foundation upon which we base our faith.  Heb 6:19 calls it “an anchor.”  Have you ever seen a real anchor?  If there is anything the opposite of a wisp of steam, that’s it—solid and strong, able to hold us steady in the worst winds of life.  Tell me how a pert nose and a full bank account can do that!
   The world thinks it knows what is real while we sit like a toddler grasping at steam.  When eternity comes, they will finally see that they are wrong.  Spiritual things are the only things that last, the only real things at all.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal, 2 Cor 4:6-8.

*Information from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

When we kept our grandsons last spring, twenty-month-old Judah usually climbed into my lap every evening as we sat at the table for a final cup of coffee.  It took me a minute the first time his little hand reached out in the air, but finally I realized he was trying to catch the steam wafting over my mug, and was completely mystified when it disappeared between his chubby little fingers.
               A lot of people spend their lives trying to catch the steam, vapors that seem solid but disintegrate in their grasping hands.  They do it in all sorts of ways, and all of them are useless. 
               Do they really think they can stop time?  Over 11,000,000 surgical and nonsurgical cosmetic procedures were performed in this country in 2013, and we aren’t talking medically necessary procedures.  The top five were liposuctions, breast augmentations, eyelid surgeries, tummy tucks, and nose surgeries.*
               Then there are the folks chasing wealth and security.  Didn’t the recent Great Recession, as it is now called, teach them anything?  Others are striving to make a name for themselves.  These are usually the same folks who tell Christians how pathetic we are to believe that some Higher Power would ever notice we even exist on this puny blue dot in the universe.  Yet there they all go looking for fame, fortune, notoriety, beauty, or even their version of eternal life.  All of it is nothing more than a dream.  It will disappear, if not in a natural disaster or an economic meltdown, then the day they die—and they will die no matter how hard they try not to.  They are the ones grasping at dreams which are only a vapor that disappears in a flash.
               Our dream isn’t a dream at all.  It is a hope, which in the Biblical sense means it is all but realized.  Sin and death have been conquered by a force we can only try to comprehend, by a love we can never repay, and by a will we can but do our best to imitate.  Yet there it is, not a wisp of white floating over a warm porcelain mug, but a solid foundation upon which we base our faith.  Heb 6:19 calls it “an anchor.”  Have you ever seen a real anchor?  If there is anything the opposite of a wisp of steam, that’s it—solid and strong, able to hold us steady in the worst winds of life.  Tell me how a pert nose and a full bank account can do that!
               The world thinks it knows what is real while we sit like a toddler grasping at steam.  When eternity comes, they will finally see that they are wrong.  Spiritual things are the only things that last, the only real things at all.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal, 2 Cor 4:6-8.

*Information from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

Dene Ward

Thirty years ago I saw a dress in a catalogue that I adored.  My style tends to be plain, tailored, and dark.  I generally like a blousy waistline because it makes me look like I have one, which I haven’t had since I was about two years old.  Every time that catalogue came, I salivated over that dress, a black shirtwaist with long button-cuff sleeves and a broad, white collar embroidered on the edges.  At that time we just couldn’t afford it.  Feeding two teenage boys and paying a mortgage on a state salary and music studio tuitions was almost more than we could handle.

            A couple of years ago I was wandering through a second hand clothing store.  You would be surprised the bargains you can find if you are careful.  I have bought name brands for literally one-tenth their original price, some of them with the original price tags still on them, the extra buttons still sealed in plastic. 

            That day I saw the black arms hanging out from the press of the rack; I saw the white collar.  Could it be?  I checked the neckline for the label and found the old catalogue name.  So I pulled it out and felt a thrill.  This was the dress I had wished for.  Thirty years ago it was a $45 dress.  This store wanted $6.00!  Then came the moment of truth:  I checked the size.  Yes!  Just to make sure, I tried it on, and then quickly shelled out my $6 and change for tax.  It almost made me believe in fate.

            This dress is long sleeved and a fairly heavy knit so it was just after Thanksgiving before I could wear it here in Florida.  I wore it to church that Sunday.  One of the first people I saw, a sweet five year old, came running up and exclaimed, “Mrs. Dene!  You look just like a pilgrim!”  I laughed a little, gave her a hug and thanked her.  Before I was halfway down the hall, another child came running up and said the same thing, word for word. 

            Okay, I thought.  I look like a pilgrim.  Maybe it’s too close to Thanksgiving to wear this.

            In the middle of January I wore it again.  A third sweet child gave me the same compliment.  It was enough to make me wonder, do they teach this phrase in the Bible classes these days?  But I suppose what capped it all was a good friend who came up to me and laughed, saying, “You look like a pilgrim!”

            I donated the dress to another thrift store.  All I could see when I looked in the mirror were the missing white cap, buckled shoes and white stockings.  It certainly isn’t what I thought of when I used to moon over that catalogue.

            I wonder if Abraham and Sarah had in mind the pilgrim life God had planned for them when they answered the call to “Go to a land I will show you.”  That doesn’t necessarily sound like they would always be nomads.  It doesn’t sound like they would never have an earthly home again.  When someone tells me to go, usually they have a specific destination in mind.

            Even if they didn’t understand that in the beginning, they finally did.  By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God, Heb 11:8-10.  Eventually they knew they would never have a home on this earth, that the real one was waiting beyond the border of physical life and death.

            We must eventually, and as soon as possible, learn the same thing.  Our culture is too caught up in the here and now, in instant gratification, in “if it feels good do it.”  We think this is what matters.  That’s why we let it bother us so much when things do not go right.  That’s why we become angry over the inconsequential and throw away the truly valuable, including our hope.  They made me mad and they are going to know it!  They took what’s mine, and I have a right to take it back.  They hurt me and now I am going to hurt them—usually in exactly the same low way they hurt me. 

            If I know what it means to be a pilgrim in this world, none of that matters.  I don’t need to throw a tantrum.  I don’t need to get even.  I don’t need to have more and more and more because everyone else has it.  I don’t even need an easy, carefree life with no trials.  It will never compare to Heaven no matter how wonderful it is, and it certainly isn’t worth giving up Heaven for.

            Maybe I should have kept the “Pilgrim” dress.  Maybe it would have reminded me of things I need to remember, when I need to remember them most.  Maybe you need to wear it, too.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city, Heb 11:13,15.

Dene Ward