Do Not Fret - Psalms 37-39 and Acts 26

I will never forget the morning that the Lord spoke to me about Psalm 37 through Henry Blackaby at his monthly Bible study. I had focused on verse 4 where the psalmist says to delight in the Lord, but that morning Henry pointed out that the theme of the whole psalm was to stop fretting. I realized that if I allowed myself to fret or to worry, I was not delighting in the Lord, and I was not trusting Him. Therefore, I had to stop fretting, before I could do those other essentials. We all need to see it from this angle. We must not worry about evil doers. We must not worry about our enemies. We must not worry about being in need. We must trust God, and realize He is able to meet every need and to protect us. Then, we are delighting in the Lord. Even when we sin, as David speaks of in these other psalms, we are not to fret over our sin. We are to confess it to God and repent, knowing that He will forgive us and remove it. There is never a reason to fret, if God is our Father, Jesus is our Savior, and the Holy Spirit dwells in us.

Was Paul worried when he stood before King Agrippa? He did not seem worried to me. He told the group that he was happy to be able to speak to them and to tell his story. He was not fretting because he was in prison. He was not wringing his hands in anxiety. He was simply trusting God, and God was taking care of Him. That is how God does. Even if we are martyred for our faith, as Paul was eventually, God takes us to be with Him for eternity. What a deal! To live is Christ and to die is gain. If that is true, which it is, then we have nothing about which to fret.

Tomorrow, I intend to read Psalms 40-42 and Acts 27:1-26.