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.

daily java

Daily Java:

Don’t rejoice when your enemies fall;
      don’t be happy when they stumble.
For the Lord will be displeased with you
      and will turn his anger away from them. (Proverbs 24:17-20)

Schadenfreude is a term which means a pleasure over the misfortunes of others. It is like seeing a man who drives a Lotus sports car and gloats over it with a flat by the side of the road. While we may have it on occasion, it is not good.

There was a man who worked with my father back when I was a child. He bought a brand new Oldsmobile and bragged on it incessantly. Both he and his family and my dad and our family were going on a trip to the same basic place.

The man told my father how easy it was going to be to drive his new Oldsmobile, it would be so comfortable and how much better it would be than my father’s old DeSoto. This was back in the mid 50’s.

As we drove to wherever it was we were going, we came across him on the side of the road broken down. My father stopped and helped him fix whatever was wrong and they went on their way. My father had mercy, not schadenfreude.

There is an attitude that should be in the heart of the Christ-follower. That attitude is mercy.

It is also one of the things we lack in today’s world. Politics, business, everything is infected with a go for the jugular kind of action. As long as it doesn’t hurt me, it is alright.

The problem is that it does hurt you when you act in an unmerciful way.

Gloating never becomes a person, no matter how well-deserved it may be. Being happy when bad things happen is never good, even when they happen to bad people.

For one thing, it lessens you. It diminishes you in both your own eyes and in the eyes of God. It will not please him for you to be that way.

I don’t believe the passage is literal in God turning from what he is doing and whacking you around. Yet, it will make you less that what you should be.

It is hard to imagine Jesus doing this, being happy when a Pharisee tripped on his robe, or someone who was hurting him got hurt himself.

That is hard to imagine because it was not in Jesus’ character to be that way. He was kind. Even when he was angry. Which he was on various occasions, he still did not slander or wish evil on people.

He did warn of the judgment of God, he did tell those to whom he was speaking that God was not pleased with them and would destroy him. But he did it in a way that told them he would rather it be some other way.

His grace accepts anyone, he accepts anyone. Therefore, we accept anyone. And we do not gloat over the misfortune of others, no matter how bad they may be.

That is because that, even though erring, they are children of God, too. God loves them as much as he does you.