“When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.” (Psalm 94:19)
Read: Psalm 94
Devotion: There are many things in this world that can cause anxiety. Finances, school, work, illness, and more can cause us to forget God and worry.
However, we must get our foundation right first. What causes us to worry? If we don’t know what causes our worry—the root of it—we can’t properly fight it. If all we’re doing is fighting the symptoms of our worry, we’ll never get rid of it. Merely dealing with the symptoms of anxiety is like a weed that we continue to mow but which always comes back because we never dealt with its roots.
The root of worry, is a lack of faith (Luke 12:28-30). Anxiety springs from a lack of trust in God, particularly in his nature or character.
One area in which we may feel anxious is the area of justice. Perhaps we were injured at work, and our employer is is reluctant to give us our worker’s compensation. Or perhaps the fight is with the insurance company that isn’t paying out what it has promised to pay out.
Maybe someone has sinned against us in some way that has damaged us, physically, emotionally, or socially, and it seems like they will not face any consequences for their actions.
When things are up in the air, when it seems like there is a real possibility that an injustice against us will stand, or we’re just in the midst of trying to get justice, we can easily grow anxious. “Will the insurance kick in, or will they find some loophole to deny me my claim?” “Will that guy who hurt me face justice?”
At the root of our anxiety is a fear that justice will not be done and that the injustice you have suffered will simply be covered over and forgotten without any restitution or restoration. Implicitly then, our anxiety arises due to a lack of faith in God who is the judge of all creation.
When we find ourselves in such situations, worrying over what has happened to us and how things will shake out, we need to remember who our God is, and we need to cry out to Him for help. Psalm 94 is a pertinent reminder of this.
Israel as a nation and people were well acquainted with injustice. They were enslaved in Egypt for four hundred years. After their redemption from Egypt and while they were traveling in the wilderness, the surrounding nations tried to destroy them. When they were in the Promised Land, they were constantly surrounded and attacked by hostile nations. Nations that taunted them, threatened them, and made raids on them.
Not only this, but the faithful in Israel dealt with injustice from outside of Israel and injustice from within.
As the nation drifted off into idolatry, the people became more and more wicked, and they started to oppress, deprive, and hate one another. This wickedness and idolatry usually originated from the political and religious leaders in Israel. When the king is corrupt and the courts are corrupt, good luck getting justice.
It’s easy to imagine the frustration, heartache, and worry that can overtake someone in such a situation, especially if they are someone who is doing their best to live a faithful life to God. What are they to do? They can continue to worry and doubt that God will ever give them justice, or as the author of this psalm did, they can remember and rest in the fact that God is the righteous sovereign judge over the earth who will faithfully right every wrong.
Though the wicked foolishly live as though God has not seen what they have done and that there is no justice coming to them, God has seen and will repay them to their face for every evil act and even every evil intention of their heart. As the psalmist concludes his song, “He will bring back on them their iniquity and wipe them out for their wickedness; the LORD our God will wipe them out” (Ps 94:23).
One problem that we have with this—which exacerbates our worry—is that we’re impatient and short sided. We want justice, and if doesn’t come now, we’ll never get it. While that desire for justice is good, we must trust that the Lord knows better. That our greater good is that we patiently endure, trust, and wait for God’s vengeance toward the wicked at the end of the age. Who knows, perhaps God has allowed whatever injustice we have experienced to come into our life for the purpose of our sanctification through deepening our trust in him and his righteousness (Rom 8:28-29)?
As we live in a world full of injustice, let us not forget who is both King and Judge: Our great and righteous Lord who is coming soon to bring His recompense with Him (Rev. 22:12). When the cares of your heart are many, may Christ’s righteousness cheer your soul.