Not Long Now – The Winds Shall Soon Change

“Yet a little while, and the wicked will be no more;

though you look diligently for their place, they will not be there.

But the meek shall inherit the land,

and delight themselves in abundant prosperity.”

~Psalm 37:10-11 (NRSV).

Such are there contentions in life. We wonder about the fate of those who set themselves against us and our objectives; watching our backs we do.

Yet, they endure only for a time. We all do. That’s all.

But there is an extra dimension to the fate of the wantonly wicked. Their inheritance vanishes—the physical and the spiritual. Name a generation or two perhaps; three and all’s gone. And though we cried out to God in our anguish at these, as we later look for them, God has disposed of them beyond our diligence—we may even pity their demise. God’s judgment has a very lasting quality about it.

Receiving an Inheritance

The just will receive their due reward. Faith commands an inheritance, though God’s never held to ransom. Still, an indelible promise of God’s is faith will be rewarded.

It’s a meek faith that commands the blessing here, and Psalm 37 is absolutely charged with allusions to meekness.

It is meekness that breeds the blessing that commands the inheritance.

“Abundant Prosperity” – What Does That Look Like?

We know that things in the spiritual realm are not anything like those of the worldly realm. We can take it from that, that the sort of “abundant” prosperity we have now in our sights is diametrically opposed to owning lots of material possessions—or even possessing positions of stature in life.

But, in the Old Testament context it did include ‘the land’. The land was a key definer of wealth and “prosperity” in those ancient times, much as it is today, and it was recognised biblically.

So, if this “abundant” prosperity is not material, yet it somehow includes the inheritance of land, how do we differentiate materialism from the context of prosperity?

Re-enter meekness.

The meek are not particularly threatened by those envious souls who greedily acquire the wealth of land. Though they do, it will turn over to the hands of the wise and diligently moral in the matter of a generation or two. The same principle holds for anything that can be ‘possessed’.

Besides the greatest ‘possession’—the ultimate ‘inheritance’—has nothing material about it; not since the redemption of humanity in Christ Jesus our eternal Lord.

Wait Awhile

Whenever we get steamed up about how others who are bent immorally are succeeding and we aren’t, all we need to do is instruct ourselves patiently to wait.

The wheels always turn consistently in the kingdom of heaven.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.