Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act.
— Psalm 37:5
Over this week, I’ve spoken with numerous people who seem to be in impossible situations: they can’t get a satisfying job or advance their career; they’re not seeing growth in the things they’re working on; they’re facing opposition or lies they have no way of countering or correcting.
King David wrote Psalm 37 for a situation everyone eventually encounters: the apparent success of wrongdoing.
Martin Luther wrote a long reflection on this Psalm for his congregation in Wittenberg when he was under the Imperial Ban after Worms in 1521. Facing injustice, slander, and opposition, with no way to address these issues, Luther found comfort in Psalm 37. In 1526 he would write a tract for the Queen of Hungary and Bohemia on four “Psalms of comfort” (37, 62, 94, 109), which included a shortened version of his exposition of this Psalm.
In response to facing injustice and unfairness in our lives, David does not tell us to become passive. He says: Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act.
Martin Luther comments:
“This does not mean that you should loaf. But commit your ways, your work, your word, and your walking to God, and do not be bothered by them. Committing our way to God does not mean that we do nothing. It means that though the hypocrites may denounce, ridicule, slander, or frustrate what we do, we must not give in to them or quit, but keep right on with it, letting them have their stubbornness and entrusting the whole cause to God, who will make it come out right on both sides.”
That explanation is absolutely right; and it’s so helpful because it distinguishes two errors we all fall into:
There is a kind of unhealthy resignation, which simply gives up. God does not commend this. Christians are called to work, speak, serve, teach, build, repent where repentance is needed, correct what can be corrected, and continue faithfully in the vocations God has given them.
But there is also a kind of unhealthy responsibility, which assumes that the outcome is my responsibility to control. God does not commend this either. God is Almighty. Jesus is Lord. The Spirit is the one who works where He wills. You and I are not.
And actually, while we can distinguish these errors, both of them at heart are the same: they both assume that I’m ultimately in control and measure everything by what I can make happen, rather than by what God has promised to do. That burden consumes us. It just either consumes us in weighing us down passively or by burning us out actively.
Psalm 37 offers another way.
Do what is yours to do, and entrust to God what belongs to God.
Commit (1) your way (2) to Him.
It is still your way: you have something to do. That something is defined by the Ten Commandments. It means to only speak truthfully (no 2), and sometimes not to speak at all (no 8). It means to obey men in authority over you (no 4), and sometimes to obey God rather than men (no 1).
It means, simply, to walk as faithfully as you can in God’s commandments—and then trust his promises for the outcome; always knowing that his forgiveness for your mistakes stands constantly ready for you in Christ.
This is not passive indifference; nor is it coercive control. It is faith, lived out in action.
Indeed, the following verse makes the promise even stronger:
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.
— Psalm 37:6
You don’t need to manufacture your own vindication. God sees what is hidden. He knows truth from falsehood, faithfulness from hypocrisy, repentance from pretence. And He is able, in His own time and His own way, to bring what is concealed into the light.
Sometimes He does that quickly. Sometimes He does it slowly. And often, we will not see the whole matter put right in this life.
But the promise does not depend upon our ability to make it happen.
Keep doing the work God has placed before you. Speak truthfully. Examine yourself honestly. Repent when you are wrong. Refuse to be driven from what is right merely because doing it has become difficult.
And then commit the cause to God.
And if you’d like to explore more, check out this sermon on the second of these comfort Psalms preached recently at Manchester Lutheran Church: What Makes Me Safe?