and bothering ourselves continually. If
we keep our eyes on the wickedness of others and continually grieve over
it, we shall have no time to be joyful ourselves, we shall have no time to
live our life with God.

Psalm 37 further says, "Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in
his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass" (v. 7).
What all of us need to learn is to let God bear his own responsibilities.
He tells us what to do in the first part of the verse--"Rest in Jehovah,
and wait patiently for him." If evil-doers prosper, if they seem even more
prosperous than the righteous, if they seem to get along without trouble,
we should not be bothered over that. That is God's business. We see a
great many evil things going on, and we should like to stop them. They
grieve us in spirit, and this is but natural. But we ought not to fret
ourselves over them. There is a vast difference between godly concern and
human worry, and we need to learn this difference clearly. To be concerned
about such things, and to pray earnestly for God to overcome them and put
a stop to them, is all very well; but when it comes to fretting over them
and worrying and being bothered, this is quite another thing. We should
never let these things mar the peace of our souls. God means for us to
have peace and be thankful right here in the midst of all this wickedness.

He tells us why we should not fret. "Fret not thyself; it tendeth only to
evil-doing" (v. 8). Fretfulness has a tendency to make us doubt God and
his wisdom: how natural for us to think that if we had the power that he
has we would put a stop to such things. It has a tendency to make us
murmur and to be dissatisfied. It is likely to discourage us; and when we
are discouraged, we are likely to murmur against the way things appear to
be going. Fretfulness is almost certain to take the sweetness out of our
hearts and out of our communion with God. It will lead to a loss of
spirituality. It will rob us of spiritual tone.

When we are fretting we may think that we are doing the best we can, but
we are not. We may think that we can not help fretting, but we can. There
is a way in which we may possess control of ourselves and cast the burden
of the responsibility upon God, and he will bear it if we do thus. We have
to decide that we will be happy no matter what happens, no matter what the
conduct of others may be, no matter what obstacles they place in our way,
no mat