Do not fret

In Psalm 37 David says on 3 occasions ‘Do Not Fret’. In many places in the bible we are told ‘be anxious about nothing’ ‘Do not worry’. Over and over again we are told this in Old and New Testament. I think God is trying to tell us something. If He is telling us not to worry, it’s to put our trust completely in Him. David went through so much turmoil in his life that he had good reason to worry but at the end of the day he put his trust in God and it paid dividends.

Trust in the Lord and do good, dwell in the land and practice faithfulness, delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart

Psalm 37:3 MEV

So why do we worry and fret and get stressed out? Here He is telling us what to do and He will certainly bless us with the ‘desires of our heart’. However, when He created us, He gave us free will and subsequently we use this free will to do things our way because we think we can do better. So, we make our own plans and wonder when they fail; then we go to God and cry out for help. But we are only human, and God understands this. But if all of us could just spend a little more time in Him, in His presence, delighting ourselves in Him we could enjoy the ‘desires of our hearts’. It’s a question of whether or not we believe that God tells the truth in His word. If the answer is ‘Yes’ then we need to observe the conditions He lays down to fulfil His promises. Verse 5 ‘Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him and He will bring it to pass. Verse 7 ‘Rest in the Lord’ and wait patiently for Him’. I think that is the problem. So many of us don’t have the patience to wait until He shows us the right way or shows us the answer. It’s our human nature to be impatient and to want everything ‘yesterday’.

But we need to learn to trust in Him, wait on Him, spend time with Him, delight ourselves in Him and the promise of giving us the ‘desires of our heart’ will happen.

Further on in Psalm 37 we are told ‘The steps of man are made firm by the Lord, He delights in his way. Though he falls he will not be hurled down’ or as it says in NLT ‘Though they stumble they will not fall for the Lord holds them by the hand’. What a lot we have to be thankful for. Even when we mess up God is there waiting to pick us up again and to hold our hand. Praise God that He loves us all enough to help us to overcome – if we let Him!

: Terry Walmsley :