God Laughs – At the Wicked Who Prosper
God Laughs – At the Wicked Who Prosper.
“The One who sits enthroned in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them… The wicked plot against the righteous; they snarl at them in defiance. But the Lord laughs, for He sees their day of judgment coming… They come out at night, snarling like vicious dogs as they prowl the streets. Listen to the filth that comes from their mouths, their words cut like swords. ‘After all, who can hear us?’ they sneer. For your part, Lord, you laugh at them.” (Psalm 2:4; Psalm 37:13; Psalm 59:6-8).
It seems to me that our Lord God has an ironic sense of humor. He is reported to have deep belly laughs when He looks at mankind and sees how ridiculous we can be. He seems to laugh whenever we humans do things that are laughably absurd. God sees irony everywhere, He observes behavior that is unexpectedly foolish in light of His greatness. God seems amused when He sees the opposite of what one should expect in a God-filled universe. He chuckles at attitudes that defy logic from His perspective. On the one hand, God isn’t surprised by anything. On the other hand, He seems to be pleasantly scornful at what we humans can do.
People build an immense building and think it will reach God and enable access to Him, and God finds it ridiculous. He sees nations without a conscience conspire against God to cut Him out of their laws and society, and God can only say, ‘Are you serious?’ He sees a man who thinks he can become equal to Him in every respect, a god-player, and God can only shake His head. God observes someone who thinks He is able to flee His presence and live as if He doesn’t exist, and God can only look at him with righteous scorn. He hears many of us utter obscene and hurtful language thinking that no one is within earshot, and God can only say, ‘You’re just kidding me, right?’ He sees so many who think they can do evil and live without restraint, and God can only sigh in sad amusement, knowing there will be a true come-to-Jesus moment waiting in the future. God knows that there will be a Judgment Day coming, and He takes joy in the reality of a moral universe that He created. He knows that all who have rejected Him will someday reap what they sown if they have rejected His grace in life. All this foolishness, all this thoughtlessness… Is it that we don’t have a high enough view of God? Is it that we have too high a view of ourselves? Both? Perhaps what makes God laugh loudest is our futile hubris, our unrighteous chutzpah.
Our downfall is probably attributed to our hubris, which can be defined this way:
HUBRIS: a Greek word that means excessive pride; exaggerated self-conceit; overwhelming self-confidence; sheer arrogance; in ancient Greece, hubris was a character flaw reflecting a defiance of the gods, when someone would foolishly or maliciously act against the divine order; someone with hubris always has a lack of self-awareness and won’t stop to examine his behavior or consider other actions; people with hubris are generally too full of themselves to question their motives or actions; people who are overcome with hubris eventually bring about their own downfall. As Rabbi Jonathon Sacks once wrote, “If Scripture is our guide, what makes God laugh is a person’s delusion of grandeur.”
“Do not fret because of evildoers, for they will wither quickly like the grass and fade like the green herb… Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way or brings wicked schemes to pass… Evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for Yahweh will inherit the land. The meek will inherit the earth, and will delight themselves in shalom… The wicked plots against the righteous, and snarls at him in defiance. The Lord laughs at him, for He sees his day coming.” (Psalm 37 excerpts; a psalm of David).
There are many rich Hebrew words in this psalm of David, including: Fret, Wait, Meek, and Shalom.
FRET: charah (khaw-raw) = to heat up; to work yourself into being incensed; to grow warm in vexation; to blaze up in anger; to be kindled; to glow with spite.
WAIT: qavah (kaw-vaw) = to combine, to bind together by twisting, to entwine, to wrap tightly; akin to twining rope or braiding hair; hopeful readiness; patient trust; active faithfulness; patient waiting is when we actively braid together the scattered fragments and fragile strands of our lives into a unified, durable wholeness; when we bind together all the facets of our life with God and His purposes in a time of resting in God; wrapping the Lord together with our concerns during a time of delay.
MEEK: anav (aw-nawr) = humility; power-in-control; purposeful strength; the word is used to describe a powerful horse who has submitted to the bridle and is willing to be tamed by a master horseman; when God controls one’s strength for energetic usefulness; implies the strength of character to submit one’s power to God who holds the reigns. In biblical terms, meekness is the exact opposite of hubris.
PEACE: shalom (sha-lome) = peace of mind and heart; abundant prosperity; flourishing; total well-being; wholeness, as in the joining together of opposites; integrity, as in the effective holding together of separate pieces; harmony; fulfillment; health; security; tranquility; freedom from disquiet and disorder; reconciliation; resolution of conflict; healing of division; living into the sense that all is well.
In Psalm 37 we see that God enjoys the delicious irony of the righteous poor receiving a king’s inheritance while the wicked rich get written out of the will altogether. God is amused at the great reversals He has built into His moral universe… the last shall be first and the first shall be last; the humble will be exalted and the exalted will be humbled; those who judge now will ultimately be judged; those who seem to be sitting on life’s sidelines now will ultimately be in the middle of all the action; those who have given up power in this life will receive the wealth of the Kingdom later; today’s bullies are tomorrow’s punching bags.
God doesn’t fret about the prosperity of today’s evildoers. He doesn’t lose any sleep at the apparent injustice of the way the world works sometimes. He laughs off the temporary prosperity of the wrong parties. For God knows the Big Picture, He knows that the wicked will be judged by a righteous Lord. The wicked will not succeed forever. They will sooner or later be cut off and then disappear. From being the center of everything, they will be on the edge of nothing. In the long run, the success of the wicked will be short-lived, and the prosperity of the righteous will last forever.
What is the secret as we try to avoid fretfulness in the midst of all this? According to David’s psalm, we trust in the Lord’s management of the world and find rest for our souls in Him. We continue to focus on doing good rather than compromising with evil in frustration. We take delight in the Lord, finding our joy and fulfillment in our relationship with God. We stay committed to God without getting sidetracked. We learn to quiet our spirits and find our comfort in being prayerfully still before the Lord. We actively wait by braiding together aspects of our lives into a unified faith in God. We submit our power to God in all humility, surrendering our strength to Him for His purposes. We simply trust in the goodness of God’s wisdom despite appearances.
The more we accept David’s holy counsel in Psalm 37, the less we will worry about the apparent prosperity of the wicked, the less we will get hot and bothered by the success of the unworthy. Instead, we will experience a peaceful wholeness that will enable us to flourish in that which is eternally significant, to live into an abundant well-being in which we can honestly say that, in the long run, all is well.