Psalms 37:33-40: in context

Psalm 37 is the great psalm for anyone who has ever looked at the world and felt the unfairness of it, the way the ruthless seem to prosper while the honest struggle. And here at its close, the psalmist gives a piece of testimony from his own long life, something he has actually watched happen. I have seen the wicked in great power, he says, spreading himself like a green tree in its native soil. Picture that: a flourishing, deep-rooted tree, thriving, dominant, seemingly permanent. That is how the successful wrongdoer looks, established and unstoppable. But then, he says, he passed away, and behold, he was gone. Yes, I sought him, but he could not be found. The tree that looked so permanent simply vanished, and when the psalmist went looking, there was nothing there.

That is the long view the psalm keeps pressing on us. Twice it uses the word future: there is a future for the man of peace, but the future of the wicked shall be cut off. The point is not that evil never flourishes; the psalmist admits plainly that it does, and on a grand scale. The point is that its flourishing has no future in it, no lasting root, and if you wait, you will see it pass. So the repeated counsel is patience: wait for the LORD, and keep his way. Do not fret. Do not envy. Take the long view.

That speaks directly to something I feel more often than I would like to admit. When I watch the unscrupulous prosper, the corner-cutters get ahead, the arrogant seem untouchable, it can curdle into envy or a bitter sense that keeping to the right way is pointless. The psalmist, who saw more of it than I have, says otherwise: he watched the green tree flourish and then simply not be there. When I see the wicked flourishing and feel that old dismay rising, can I wait for the LORD and keep to his way, trusting the future the psalmist promises over the flourishing I can see right now?