Inheriting the Land

When a poet writes, s/he most certainly considers which ideas and phrases come in conjunction with each other. Sentence B follows sentence A for a reason....

With that in mind, I was looking at Psalm 37:7-9:

"Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;

do not fret when men succeed in their ways,

when they carry out their wicked schemes.

Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret—it leads only to evil.

For evil men will be cut off,
but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land."

I admit that when I first read this, the first stanza here seemed unrelated to the next two. Naturally, refraining from anger is a good idea, whether it has anything to do with being still before God. Likewise, waiting for Him is a good move, regardless of whether or not evil men will be cut off. But, I feel fairly certain that, like any good poetry, these ideas were not put together haphazardly. So, I started considering more deeply.

It's possible that the inference here is sort of a chain of events. First message: don't be impatient with God. Well, I know that when I am impatient with His plans, I often tend to fret and worry. But then the next thing we're told here is not to fret. "It only leads to evil."

Yikes. Evil?

Looking at the Hebrew behind this word is helpful. The first note in my study aid is that the literal translation behind this word is a breaking to pieces. More properly, this word means "to spoil." So, worrying leads to me becoming spoiled. Ah, that sounds about right. The word implies displeasure and harming oneself as well. Yeah, so worry? Not good. Got it.

We're also encouraged to refrain from anger & turn from wrath. I like the KJV translation on this bit; it says to "forsake wrath." In my mind, that implies making an active decision to leave wrath out in the cold. There's choice involved.

So, where am I at with my passage then? I'm to be still and patiently let God's timing be what it is. I'm not to worry about it, and part of that means I need to choose to forgo my self-indulgent desire to be angry with Him; I get to choose to let that go.

Lastly, after a reminder that my worrying about God's timing only ruins me, I'm given a word of encouragement: "Those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land."

The KJV uses even stronger language: "those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth." From what I can tell (and please know I'm not establishing theology here; I'm not Hebrew scholar...just trying to piece this together), this is basically an idiomatic phrase meaning "everything." Its first occurrence in the Bible is in Genesis 1:1. "In the beginning, God created the heaves and the earth." There are other examples to demonstrate, but essentially, I think a fair take-away is that those who hope in Him, get it all!

No, not literally, of course, but think about what the message is here: We put our trust, our expectant belief and hope in Him, and we get the keys to the kingdom. Hallelujah! I don't know about you, but whatever kingdom He has set aside for me, I definitely want to make sure I inherit it according to His plan!

So, for me, today, I'll be praying for the Spirit to run the show, so I can walk in patience and trust in my God. And I will do so in obedience, and in expectant faith that the land He has set aside as my promised land is going to suit me just fine. :)