Psalm 37 - Don't Get Lost in Focus on Others

This psalm starts out with a great reminder for me:

¹ Don’t worry about the wicked
      or envy those who do wrong.
 ² For like grass, they soon fade away.
      Like spring flowers, they soon wither.

Sometimes it is easy to get caught up in other people's actions and what they are doing or how they are faring in life. This becomes a problem because if you are focusing on that, you are neglecting your own actions. How can you be checking and making sure you are being righteous when what you think about is the evil someone else is doing. In fact the most common reaction to that is to become angry. Now anger has it's place but the Lord reminds us:

⁸ Stop being angry!
      Turn from your rage!
   Do not lose your temper—
      it only leads to harm.

We have to trust God to take care of the wicked; to punish or discipline them,

I have to admit that I have had seasons where I have geen more worried about what someone else was doing or seeing that person be evil and prosper and getting myself worked up about it. The truth is that God has given me an reward that far exceeds all that evil will ever get someone...God. I have God's grace and God's promise to live in relationship with God eternally. How can anything else compare to that. The best way for me to lose that is to become so tied up in someone else and their actions and rewards that I neglect my relationship with God. Soon that can progress into a degrading of my own behavior and i could very well find myself acting out the very sins that I was so concerned the other person was doing. Oh, maybe I won't start murdering people, but isn't anger in my heart towards that person just as bad. Jesus told us that because he knew the person who would actually die from that anger would be ourselves. Jesus' love for each of us is so great that he wants us to each dwell in the house of the Lord forwever but a dead soul cannot do that.

So focus on your actions and thoughts and let God bless your life. Focus on your relationship with God and make it stronger every day. Let God take care of others.