daily java

Daily Java:

O Lord, do good to those who are good,
    whose hearts are in tune with you.
But banish those who turn to crooked ways, O Lord.
    Take them away with those who do evil. (Psalm 125)

It is normal to want those who are against you to do badly. It is a natural part of everybody’s makeup. There is even a big German word for it: Schadenfreude. It means joy at the misfortunes of others.

An example? There is a guy who has constantly bragged about his expensive fancy car. You are both going to the same place and he tells you how comfortable he will be while you tootle along in your old car. On the way, you pass him and he has a flat. How you feel, that is Schadenfreude.

The psalmist, whoever he was, was no different. He wanted good to happen to good people and bad to bad people. It is natural.

There is a plaintive scene in the book of Revelation when from under the altar, the souls of the people of God who have been martyred for the sake of the cross cry out, How long, O Lord? How long before you judge the people who belong to this world and avenge our blood for what they have done to us? (Revelation 6:10)

They wanted that too. it is natural, especially when you see those who are wicked, those who do not have even a vestige of godliness in them prosper. You want to see good people do well and you want to see bad people do badly. It is the way it should be.

But it rarely is. You only have to look casually at Hollywood to see that. Godless and immoral people are wealthy, throwing their money away on garbage while others who are godly are struggling to make ends meet.

Why? I do not know. And no one except God does either. I have heard a hundred, a thousand different answers and the common denominator of them all is that they didn’t know what they were talking about.

So what do we do? It is easy to say that we look toward God, but when we are having such financial and health struggles, it is hard.

But that is exactly what we do. We look to God. He is the author and finisher of our faith, Hebrews says. He is the one who will save us, who will complete us, who will ultimately give us all of the riches of heaven.

For now, we wait. We cry out like the Psalmist and like the souls under the altar for God to work his justice. But we also wait.

We know that one day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11). We know it will come. And there will be Schadenfreude., I guess. It is human nature.