A Whole Lot of Frettin' Going On

Devotional Reading from Psalm 37:1-10

Psalm 37:1–10

A Psalm of David.

1Fret not thyself because of evildoers, Neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. 2For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, And wither as the green herb. 3Trust in the Lord, and do good; So shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. 4Delight thyself also in the Lord; And he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. 5Commit thy way unto the Lord; Trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. 6And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, And thy judgment as the noonday. 7Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him: Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, Because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. 8Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: Fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. 9For evildoers shall be cut off: But those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. 10For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: Yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be.

I like that old English word “Fret”. We mountain folk still use it and we practice it. Wow, do we practice it! The word means to get hot, or more times than not it is translated kindled. In other words when we fret, we are getting a fire kindled, hot under the collar. We fret over stuff, a lot of stuff, don’t we? Just a quick scroll through your newsfeed and you will discover a whole lot of frettin’ going on. David through the inspiration of God commanded us to not fret ourselves. He also said for us to not envy those who are doing wrong. Envy may be the only thing we participate in more than frettin’. We worry about what the silly people in Washington are doing and we envy the staged life our neighbor has on Facebook, never realizing that the pictures are edited, and their real life and real problems never make it into the pictures. We must remember that the success of the wicked is short lived like the grass of spring. Someone might say, “Oh Bald one, we can’t help but fret!” God must believe that we control the thermostat to our fret machine in order to give these commands. He does give some substitutes to all the frettin’. One is to delight ourselves in the Lord. If we can preoccupy ourselves with God and his goodness, then we may just forget to fret. We are told to commit our way to the Lord. The word “commit” means “to roll upon”. Peter may have had this verse in mind as he said in 1 Peter 5:7 “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.” Give God your burden and focus on him, Isn’t that what Jesus taught us in Matthew 6:33 when he told us to “…seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all of these things shall be added unto you?” We are told to rest in the Lord in verse 7. We are to be quiet and still and enjoy his presence as he works all around us. I am reminded of my nannie and a poem by Elizabeth Chaney that she would quote as she rocked in her recliner and rolled her little foot. Here is what she would say,

Said the robin to the sparrow, “I should really like to know, Why these anxious human beings Rush about and worry so.” Said the sparrow to the robin, “Friend I think that it must be, That they have no Heavenly Father, Such as cares for you and me.”