Psalm 37:7 Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him;Do not get upset because of one who is successful in his way, because of the person who carries out wicked schemes. 8 Cease from anger and abandon wrath; Do not get upset; it leads only to evildoing. 9 For evildoers will be eliminated, but those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land.”

The hebrew for “upset” is charah: To be hot, to burn, to be angry, to be kindled: to glow or grow warm; figuratively (usually) to blaze up, of anger, zeal, jealousy — be angry, burn, be displeased, fret self, grieve, be (wax) hot, be incensed, kindle, be wroth. It is used 90 times in the OT: most often describing anger, but at times pointing more broadly to intense indignation or grief.

That’s a good word to describe how I feel about government spending and the church business! Maybe how you feel aso. Not just disagree or sad or grieved about how things are going, but anger. That stuff makes me angry and often out of my anger I harshly judge and criticize people and the way things are done. That makes me miserable at times. But David said “do not get upset” over evil people and things. 

We must turn those things and people over to God. Quit trying to control things. Let God be in control. He might be allowing bad things to happen to punish or humble people, and there we are going against His will.  Let God determine the outcome. Let go and let God.

Wait patiently on the Lord to act. Maybe I have a leak in my plumbing. It is a serious leak so I call a professional plumber. If I have confidence in the plumber coming and fixing the leak, then I just sit back and try to wait patiently till he gets to my house. But if I don’t have confidence that he will get here quickly, or if I don’t trust him to fix it properly, then I will probably try to fix it myself and make it even worse b/c I am not a plumber. Or maybe he is coming, but doesn’t come as quickly as I want him to. I get upset, maybe angry.

We can’t fix all the evil in the world or church. Government spending, waste, and the deficit. Churches using most of their collected money on themselves instead of helping the poor, heping persecuted Christians worldwide, drilling wells, and printing Bibles. Churches going LGBQT. We can get upset and angry but that only makes us miserable. If we trust in the Lord to fix things then we will do anything that we can do to make things better, but then we will calmly sit back and wait on him to act. If things don’t get fixed quickly, then we can assume that the Lord has a reason to let things get worse. If that happens, we still relax, knowing that God is in control. We will look for reasons that God is allowing evil and then we try to help God in whatever He is doing. But bottom line, we leave things that upset us with God. We will “rest” (damam: To be silent, to be still, to cease, to be quiet) and wait for Him to act. The Hebrew word for “wait” is interesting: chuwl: To twist, whirl, dance, writhe, travail, be in anguish, be pained. You might be in anguish and inner turmoil while you wait on the Lord, but if you trust Him then you will wait. James 1:Now everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger; ²⁰ for a man’s anger does not bring about the righteousness of God.”

Does that make sense? 

I don’t just get frustrated with things: I get angry. That word “upset”.  All that does is bring me down It eats at me so much that I can’t see the positive that is still out there amidst all the bad stuff. I need to work on not being upset over things!

So how do you react to things that grieve you, that. frustrate you, that bother you, that go against how you think things should be done?