Perfect Math

 

Thursday, February 10, 2022

Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers.  But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night.  They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season.  Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.  But not the wicked!  They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind.  They will be condemned at the time of judgment.  Sinners will have no place among the godly.  For the Lord watches over the path of the godly, but the path of the wicked leads to destruction.  Psalm 1:1-6

My brother, Thom, is the math major in the family.  Before he retired he taught young people math skills for over 50 years.  When speaking the language of math Thom sometimes encounters that blank look from his brother.  My math does not enter the lofty realm of quantum physics and such.  Give me 1 + 1 = 2, and I’ll be with you to the finish; if you get much past 3 + 4, I’m (as they say) out the door! 

By contrast, the language of the Primary Psalm is math, simple enough for even me.  And it answers a question concerning “divine earthly retribution” which scholars have debated for centuries.  That question is: 

Does God really bless the good behavior of those
who honor Him, and punish the wicked?

It is tempting to read the Psalm that way and expect immediate reward and punishment.  But that would be to presume we understand all there is to know about God’s timetable.  And that would be a wrong presumption, because there are at least two Scripture passages which point-out how we must not try to put God into a box, by assigning when it is right to hand-out punishment or blessing:

1.     Time was created by God, a sufficient reason to understand why he isn’t constrained by time.  The Creator is always above and beyond the creation.

But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.  2 Peter 3:8

2.    We cannot possibly understand the motives of, and movements in, the purposes of God. 

For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.  Isaiah 55:9

We can always count on God to punish the wicked and lift-up the righteous, but we must constantly remind ourselves to not assume the position of judge over God.  And we must also constantly resist the thought that we know all about what God thinks, or does.  Remember, there are some secret things[1] which God reserves to himself. 

For You Today

For now we must trust God, and look forward to the time when He reveals all to us, which he has also promised:

Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.  1 John 3:2

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

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[1] See Deuteronomy 29:29