While reading this psalm, I immediately thought about work. I don’t want you to think I work with a bunch of evildoers (I mean, maybe a few); because I was thinking about work in terms of an encouragement a co-worker and I often repeat to each other: Run your own race!
Sometimes I get caught up in what others are doing, or not doing, instead of concentrating on what I’m supposed to be doing. When I start to complain and worry about how others aren’t pulling their own weight, not following the rules, etc., my co-worker reminds me to “run my own race”, to do what I’m supposed to be doing and not worry about others; and I do the same for her.
In the same way I need to focus on running my own race at work instead of what others are doing; this psalm encourages us to not be envious, or concentrate, on those doing evil but to remain loyal and faithful to the Lord. The psalm reminds us to be satisfied that the Lord will make the distinction between the faithful and the godless.
He commands that we “fret not yourself because of evildoers” who it seems are prospering because we, as God’s people are to remain faithful, “trust in the Lord, and do good.” We do this because in the end justice will come and the evildoers will “fade like the grass” and “the evildoers shall be cut off.”
The first several verses give us some practical ways we can run our own race and not worry about what the wicked are doing:
Trust in the Lord
Do good
Delight yourself in the Lord
Commit your way to the Lord
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him
Matthew Henry, in his commentary on Psalm 37 says,
“Let us be satisfied that God will make all to work for good to us. Let us not discompose ourselves at what we see in this world. A fretful, discontented spirit is open to many temptations. For, in all respects, the little which is allotted to the righteous, is more comfortable and more profitable than the ill-gotten and abused riches of ungodly men. It comes from a hand of special love. God provides plentifully and well, not only for his working servants, but for his waiting servants. They have that which is better than wealth, peace of mind, peace with God, and then peace in God; that peace which the world cannot give, and which the world cannot have.”
So I hope you will be reminded to “run your own race” this week and remain faithful instead of concentrating on the wickedness of the world.
—Rori Shaw