Dr Garvin Heer­ah

Had a qui­et re­treat this passed week. Need­ed to pull away and re­flect. So Mrs H and I un­plugged from the busy-ness and plugged in­to the calm and seren­i­ty of a peace­ful set­ting. We were joined by an­oth­er cou­ple, very close friends in our beloved sis­ter isle. Away from the noise. We spent the time re­flect­ing in our Cou­ples De­vo­tion on Psalm 37. I’m shar­ing the Re­flec­tion with you to­day.

In a world where ap­pear­ances of­ten seem to out­weigh sub­stance, Psalm 37 stands as a pow­er­ful re­minder that God’s per­spec­tive is vast­ly dif­fer­ent from that of man. It is a psalm that speaks di­rect­ly to those who have cho­sen the dif­fi­cult path of in­tegri­ty, hon­esty, faith­ful­ness, and per­se­ver­ance while watch­ing oth­ers ap­pear to pros­per through short­cuts, com­pro­mise, de­cep­tion, or ma­nip­u­la­tion.

The psalmist David opens with a sim­ple but pro­found in­struc­tion: “Do not fret be­cause of evil­do­ers.” In mod­ern lan­guage, he is say­ing, “Don’t lose your fo­cus. Don’t be­come dis­tract­ed by what you see.”

That is eas­i­er said than done.

There have been sea­sons in my own life where I have watched oth­ers rise quick­ly while I seemed to be mov­ing slow­ly. I have seen in­di­vid­u­als gain in­flu­ence through po­lit­i­cal ma­neu­ver­ing, per­son­al agen­das, and ques­tion­able prac­tices. I have wit­nessed peo­ple ac­cu­mu­late wealth, pow­er, and sta­tus while those who worked dili­gent­ly and hon­est­ly ap­peared to be over­looked.

Yet through every sea­son, God con­tin­ued to re­mind me that suc­cess is not mea­sured mere­ly by po­si­tion, pos­ses­sions, or pop­u­lar­i­ty. True suc­cess is mea­sured by peace, pur­pose, and the as­sur­ance that you are walk­ing in the will of God.

Psalm 37 re­peat­ed­ly con­trasts the tem­po­rary pros­per­i­ty of the wicked with the last­ing in­her­i­tance of the right­eous. David re­minds us that while some may ap­pear suc­cess­ful on the out­side, they of­ten lack the very thing mon­ey can­not buy, peace of mind.

Many peo­ple pos­sess wealth but can­not sleep.

Many com­mand au­thor­i­ty but live in fear.

Many achieve promi­nence but re­main pris­on­ers of anx­i­ety, in­se­cu­ri­ty, and un­cer­tain­ty.

The right­eous, how­ev­er, pos­sess some­thing far more valu­able. They walk with con­fi­dence, know­ing that God is di­rect­ing their steps and fight­ing bat­tles they can­not see.

One of my favourite vers­es in this Psalm is verse 5: “Com­mit your way to the Lord; trust in Him and He shall bring it to pass.”

There is tremen­dous com­fort in know­ing that not every bat­tle re­quires our in­ter­ven­tion. Some­times our great­est act of faith is to re­main faith­ful while God works be­hind the scenes.

Through­out my pro­fes­sion­al jour­ney, whether in law en­force­ment, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, lead­er­ship, con­sul­tan­cy, or min­istry, I have learned that in­tegri­ty of­ten re­quires pa­tience. There are mo­ments when you are tempt­ed to re­spond to crit­i­cism, de­fend your­self against false ac­cu­sa­tions, or com­pete with those who seek ad­van­tage through dis­hon­est means.

Yet Psalm 37 teach­es an­oth­er way.

Trust God.

Stay fo­cused.

Con­tin­ue do­ing good.

Keep your hands clean and your heart pure.

The Lord is ful­ly ca­pa­ble of de­fend­ing those who be­long to Him.

This mes­sage is es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant for mar­ried cou­ples. Every mar­riage faces sea­sons of strug­gle, un­cer­tain­ty, and com­par­i­son. So­cial me­dia and pub­lic ap­pear­ances of­ten cre­ate the il­lu­sion that every­one else is hap­pi­er, wealth­i­er, and more suc­cess­ful.

But ap­pear­ances can be de­ceiv­ing.

A cou­ple walk­ing to­geth­er in faith, pray­ing to­geth­er, sup­port­ing one an­oth­er through life’s chal­lenges, and build­ing their home up­on God’s prin­ci­ples pos­sess­es a trea­sure that many en­vy but can­not du­pli­cate.

Psalm 37 en­cour­ages hus­bands and wives to re­main an­chored in God’s promis­es rather than com­par­ing their jour­ney to oth­ers. The great­est mar­riages are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those with the largest homes or the most lux­u­ri­ous lifestyles. They are the mar­riages marked by com­mit­ment, sac­ri­fice, for­give­ness, trust, and the pres­ence of God.

The Psalm al­so speaks pow­er­ful­ly to lead­ers.

To­day, hon­est lead­er­ship is of­ten test­ed. There is pres­sure to com­pro­mise val­ues, bend prin­ci­ples, or take short­cuts for per­son­al gain. Yet the right­eous leader un­der­stands that char­ac­ter is more im­por­tant than po­si­tion.

A ti­tle can be giv­en.

Pow­er can be grant­ed.

But in­tegri­ty must be earned.

Lead­ers of in­tegri­ty may oc­ca­sion­al­ly feel iso­lat­ed. They may won­der if hon­esty still mat­ters in en­vi­ron­ments where cor­rup­tion ap­pears to flour­ish. David an­swers that ques­tion clear­ly. The right­eous are nev­er for­got­ten by God.

Verse 23 re­minds us that “The steps of a good man are or­dered by the Lord.”

What a re­mark­able promise.

God is not on­ly con­cerned about our des­ti­na­tion; He is ac­tive­ly in­volved in di­rect­ing our jour­ney. Every set­back, dis­ap­point­ment, de­lay, and chal­lenge can be­come part of His di­vine process.

Look­ing back over my own life, I can see count­less mo­ments when God pro­tect­ed me from sit­u­a­tions I did not ful­ly un­der­stand at the time. Doors I des­per­ate­ly want­ed opened re­mained closed. Op­por­tu­ni­ties I thought were es­sen­tial nev­er ma­te­ri­alised. Yet years lat­er, I dis­cov­ered that His wis­dom far ex­ceed­ed my own.

(Part 2 next week)