Share this page:
TL;DR:
Psalm 37 offers a calm, steadying message for people living in a world full of tension, injustice, and anxiety. Its core teaching is simple: Don’t fret over evildoers—trust God instead. Trust, patience, righteousness, and joyful dependence on God lead to lasting peace and God’s promised blessing, while the prosperity of the wicked fades like grass. The contrasting experiences of several people in Italy illustrate the psalm’s warning that envy, anger, and impatience will pull us away from God’s peace.
What message does Psalm 37 have for us today?
1 Do not fret because of those who are evil
or be envious of those who do wrong;
2 for like the grass they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away.
3 Trust in the Lord and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
4 Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him and he will do this:
6 He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,
your vindication like the noonday sun.
7 Be still before the Lord
and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when people succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.
8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret—it leads only to evil.
9 For those who are evil will be destroyed,
but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land.
10 A little while, and the wicked will be no more;
though you look for them, they will not be found.
11 But the meek will inherit the land
and enjoy peace and prosperity.
— Psalm 37:1–11, NIV
If I just had a body that was 20 years younger, I’d be pastoring again,
Alfredo Del Rosso told me not long after his ninetieth birthday.
Del Rosso, the founder of Nazarene work in Italy, was a remarkable man whose 75-year walk with the Lord taught him the secrets of Psalm 37.
Alfredo Del Rosso was nearly 80 when he retired from active ministry. For another 10 years, however, he served as a supply preacher, filling in when pastors were away. He preached frequently at the Florence church until his death at age 94.
Far from withdrawing from life, he remained a lively Christian who could joyfully sing, What a blessedness, what a peace is mine, leaning on the everlasting arms.
By contrast, I remember a telephone conversation with another member of the Florence congregation. She and her husband were also getting up in years, but their state of mind was altogether different from that of Alfredo Del Rosso.
Her husband was having severe health problems. Over the telephone, she told me she was at the end of herself. I suggested that she might try putting everything in the hands of the Lord, but she wasn’t sure she was ready for that. Six or eight years earlier, they had experienced a deeply upsetting situation at church. Since then, they had attended only three or four times.
Their spiritual and emotional lives were anything but the rest in the Lord mentioned in Psalm 37. In fact, the husband had told me he had considered suicide.
Sadly, their painful experience had left them struggling with fretfulness, impatience, and resentment—attitudes that can rob believers of spiritual peace.
We live in a world torn by disease, terrorism, crime, international tensions, dishonesty, and corruption in business and government. Death, the evil actions of others, and inequities of every kind intrude into our personal lives. All of this can cause tension and restlessness, even for those who have experienced God’s grace most deeply. Psalm 37 gives us the divine recipe for living among wicked people: Do good. Trust God. Don’t worry.
It seems fitting that former missionary Earl Lee wrote a book about Psalm 37. Missionaries often lead hectic lives—or at least many of us say that we do.
In his book, Cycle of Victorious Living, Earl Lee used four key words from this psalm to point to the kind of abundant living Christ promised to us: commit, trust, delight, and rest.
In his explanation of the "rest" theme, Earl Lee noted that this is not the exhausted paralysis of one who has collapsed from a losing struggle. Rather, it is the rest of triumph, the rest of one who has found contentment and serenity in God, even in the face of the apparent contradictions of experience.
E. Stanley Jones, like Earl Lee, was a missionary to India. Jones recounted the story of a young man who told him, I’ve resigned as general manager of the universe!
More of us probably need to do that as well. The blessed peace with my Lord so near
described in the third verse of “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” will not come until we are truly leaning on the everlasting arms, a phrase based on Deuteronomy 33:27:
“The eternal God is your refuge,
and underneath are the everlasting arms.”
— Deuteronomy 33:27, NIV
— Howard Culbertson, hculbert@snu.edu
I wrote this reflection while Barbara and I were serving as missionaries in Italy. It is one of a series of 52 brief devotionals written for The Standard, a weekly Faith Connections take-home publication for adult Sunday school classes published by the Church of the Nazarene.
More music videos on this site
Here are five key teachings from Psalm 37:
Psalm 37 encourages us to:
Noteworthy Quotes About Other Bible Verses