The Holy Spirit, in Psalm 37:1-2,
admonishes us to beware of irritation in our religious lives:
“Fret not thyself because of
evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.”
The word “fret” comes to us from the
Anglo-Saxon and carries with it such a variety of meanings as bring a rather
pained smile to our faces. Notice how they expose us and locate us behind our
disguises. The primary meaning of the word is to eat, and from there it has
been extended with rare honesty to cover most of the manifestations of an
irritable disposition. “To eat away; to gnaw; to chafe; to gall; to vex; to
worry; to agitate; to wear away”; so says Webster, and all who have felt the
exhausting, corrosive effects of fretfulness know how accurately the
description fits the facts.
Now, the grace of God in the
human heart works to calm the agitation that normally accompanies life in such
a world as ours. The Holy Spirit acts as a lubricant to reduce the friction to
a minimum and to stop the fretting and chafing in their grosser phases. But for
most of us the problem is not as simple as that.
Fretfulness may be trimmed down
to the ground and its roots remain alive deep within the soul, there growing
and extending themselves all unsuspected, sending up their old poisonous shoots
under other names and other appearances.
It was not to the unregenerate
that the words “Fret not” were spoken, but to God-fearing persons capable of
understanding spiritual things. We Christians need to watch and pray lest we
fall into this temptation and spoil our Christian testimony by an irritable
spirit under the stress and strain of life.
It requires great care and a true
knowledge of ourselves to distinguish a spiritual burden from religious
irritation. We cannot close our minds to everything that is happening around
us. We dare not rest at ease in Zion when the church is so desperately in need
of spiritually sensitive men and women who can see her faults and try to call
her back to the path of righteousness.
The prophets and apostles of Bible times
carried in their hearts such crushing burdens for God’s wayward people that
they could say, “Tears have been my meat day and night,” and “Oh that my head
were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night
for the slain daughter of my people!” These men were heavy with a true burden.
What they felt was not vexation but acute concern for the honour of God and the
souls of men.
By nature some persons fret
easily. They have difficulty separating their personal antipathies from the
burden of the Spirit. When they are grieved they can hardly say whether it is a
pure and charitable thing or merely irritation set up by other Christians having
opinions different from their own.
Of one thing we may be sure, we
can never escape the external stimuli that cause vexation. The world is full of
them and though we were to retreat to a cave and live the remainder of our days
alone we still could not lose them. The rough floor of our cave would chafe us,
the weather would irritate us and the very silence would cause us to fret.
Deliverance from a fretting
spirit may be by blood and fire, by humility, self abnegation and a patient
carrying of the cross. There will always be “evildoers” and “workers of
iniquity,” and for the most part they will appear to succeed while the forces
of righteousness will seem to fail. The wicked will always have the money and the
talent and the publicity and the numbers, while the righteous will be few and
poor and unknown. The prayerless Christian will surely misread the signs and
fret against the circumstances. That is what the Spirit warns us against.
Let us look out calmly upon the
world; or better yet, let us look down upon it from above where Christ is
seated and we are seated in Him. Though the wicked spread himself like “a green
bay tree,” it is only for a moment. Soon he passes away and is not. “But the
salvation of the righteous is of the Lord: he is their strength in the time of
trouble.” This knowledge should cure the fretting spirit.
** Written by Aiden Wilson Tozer (A.W. Tozer) **
*** From the Book - "Man: The Dwelling Place of God" ***
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