Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Trust in YHWH, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. – Psalm 37:1-3
One of the curses of social media and the entertainment industry is that we are bombarded with an inordinate amount of evildoing. I think people tend to associate the word “evil” with really bad sins (murder, adultery, etc) but if we look at what this word means, we find definitions like “to do an injury or hurt, to do mischief, to be bad.” It encompasses the minor, more tolerated sins (in addition to the culturally unacceptable ones).
Recently, I was feeling discouraged by the level of evil-doing that has been coming across my path. Numerous situations of various kinds have been placed in front of me and the best way to describe them is to borrow a simple phrase that my children use … people are “being bad”. Destructive. Injurious. Mischievous.
And then I was reminded of the verse “fret not yourself because of evildoers” and I looked it up. The best part? The following verse encourages us with the hope that evildoers will receive a just reward. And the third verse gives us the roadmap for how to combat the natural inclination to fret.
Trust YHWH. Do good. Dwell in the land. Befriend faithfulness.
I cannot emphasize the importance of this enough, especially for us women, since we have a tendency to get emotionally swayed by what is in front of us. I have a choice. You do too. I can either allow myself to be bogged down by the evildoing around me, or I can focus on my domain where there is peace. I can do good for my own household. I can bloom where I’m planted, and cultivate faithfulness, knowing that I have no control over most of the bad behavior that scrolls across my phone screen, but I do control my actions. I have been given a wonderful gift of a husband who works to maintain the fruits of the spirit in this home, and I have the privilege of helping him do that. I have children to disciple – to teach them how to love God, to love their neighbor, to love wisdom and knowledge, to properly identify good and evil, and not be tossed about in confusion being controlled by their emotions or desires.
My goal for today (and it’s going in my planner, seriously!): I’m not going to fret over evildoers, and instead I’m going to focus on being faithful and being fruitful. I encourage all of you to consider doing the same 😊