The Search for Stability

Trust in the Lord and do what is right! Settle in the land and maintain your integrity! Then you will take delight in the Lord, and he will answer your prayers. Commit your future to the Lord! Trust in Him and He will act on your behalf. He will vindicate you in broad daylight, and publicly defend your just cause (Psalm 37:3-6, NET).

In the worn pages of my Bible, this passage from Psalm 37 has scribbles and notes filling the margin and tumbling off the edge. Dates are written down, scattered like stepping stones through the landscape of my life, marking my search for stability.

The world around us may quake, trials may rage, but God’s Word gives us a path of stability right through to the other side. 

Psalm 37 is rich instruction for the one seeking stability in this unstable world. #peace #trust #integrity Click To Tweet

Trust in the Lord and Do What is Right

Trust the Lord. No matter what you may fear, what you may see on the news, what influential person may be promising whatever solution for the world’s problems, trust the Lord foremost.

Do what is right. We have a myriad of daily choices to do what is right. Seek God’s wisdom in your own life, and do what is right in your circle of influence. 

Daily time in the Bible is the best way we can discern how to trust the Lord and do what is right.

Don’t burden yourself with legalistic, unrealistic rules. It does not matter what time of day you spend with God. Just spend time with Him. Like exercise, start small and build up. You will find one day that you cannot live without it.

Settle in the Land and Maintain your Integrity

When the world seems to be crumbling around us, settling down seems to be the last thing we could do. Settling in the land, making a nest, building a home, letting our roots stretch deep only seems safe when things are stable. The world today seems anything but stable. So how do we settle?

I believe integrity is the secret to settling in the land. As I recently returned to this instructive passage yet again, I was intrigued to discover that the phrase maintain your integrity (v3, NET translation notes) means in Hebrew to “tend integrity”.

It is as if our integrity were a flock of sheep, ever seeking to wander off, not able to nourish themselves without shepherding.

Like sheep, integrity does indeed need regular tending. It is not a one-time decision, a vow that can be made with conviction and then left to itself. It must be daily nurtured, maintained, and tended. 

Integrity is reflected in the words we use, the attitudes we convey, the choices we make day by day. Tend it diligently.

Integrity is simply being honest on the inside. Be who you are in private and in public. Be sincere. Keep your word. Honor others privately and publicly. The Oxford dictionary describes integrity as “being whole and undivided”. 

Integrity facilitates settling down and being at peace. Knowing one stands honest, doing her best before God and trusting Him to be enough, brings great tranquility.

An undivided heart that trusts in the Lord, doing what is right, can find stability and steadfastness no matter how unstable the world around it may be.

Trust + Integrity = Stability.

The human search for stability finds its solution in Psalm 37. #trust #integrity #stability Click To Tweet

Throughout history, through the rise and fall of many civilizations, God has preserved a people who have trusted Him, settled in the land, and maintained their integrity. His light, His witness to the world, has shared this common character through the eras. This is what we are called to today, followers of Jesus.

Then you will…

take delight in the Lord

commit your future to the Lord

trust in him

And He will…

act on your behalf

vindicate and defend you publicly.

Dear God, help us do the very things you instruct us to do. Increase our trust in times of uncertainty. Show us the good you would have us do and give us the courage to do it. Search our hearts and nourish integrity in our lives that we may know stability in an unstable world. Amen.

@audreycfrank