Reward

Psalm 37:1

Do not fret because of evil men
or be envious of those who do wrong;

Sometimes I wonder how much of our righteous anger is really about envy of those who do wrong. We spend so much of our time condemning certain behaviors that I think that it might be wise to first examine ourselves to determine if we’re being so judgmental because deep down inside we hate seeing “them” having so much fun. Watching others suffer because of their wrong-doings and evil deeds reminds us of why we try to walk the straight and narrow. Seeing evil reap its due reward in the short run motivates us to seek goodness. But it doesn’t seem to happen that way. When we look out on our world and see how evil people seem to prosper, our temptations become that much greater.

We’d like to see a world where the cost of evil is easily seen, but we don’t. For now we simply have to trust the promises of our faith and strive to seek God and His will in our lives instead of feeling cheated because we’re not allowed to do things that everyone else is getting away with. Rather than fretting over or envying those who do wrong, our hearts need to be set on things above, our eyes set upon Christ and the path He’s laid for us, knowing that it is the best path regardless of what we see around us.

2011- I first wrote this a few years ago.  Reading it today, I can't help but think of Charlie Sheen.  I'm usually pretty annoyed by the celeb-gossip news of the day, but I've been strangely taken by his story.  It makes me wonder if part of our infatuation with Mr. Sheen doesn't reveal our own hearts.  Do we secretly enjoy his meltdown as a just reward for his behavior, or are we rooting for him to overcome?  I said in the introduction to these posts that Christianity is a story of creation, fall, redemption and restoration.  I pray that I can have a heart that sees the image of God in every created human, hoping for restoration rather than waiting in anticipation for judgement.