Hope or Harrumph?

In Psalm 37, David says:

Do not fret because of those who are evil 

or be envious of those who do wrong; 

for like the grass they will soon wither, 

like green plants they will soon die away.

 Trust in the Lord and do good; 

dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

(Psalm 37:1-3, NIV version)

David is contrasting two ways of responding to wrongs in the world and in people. First, he says “Do not fret.” In the original Hebrew, the word for “fret” is:

חרה (hrh)

That is, do not get hot, do not blaze. The word primarily means to burn. 

Listen as you ty to say it out loud—it sounds like burning fire. It is a burning anger. Like “Harrumph,” from the old comic books when a character was frustrated. Or a loud growl by an angry Orc.

 

In contrast to “hrh,” David says to trust in the Lord. The Hebrew word for “trust” here is:

בטח (batach)

That is, trust in God. Relax that anger muscle. Put out that fire. God is the one you need to look at. Hold on to him. Do not hold on to your response to evil people. That only joins the evil, because our anger comes from our evil selves, not from God’s holiness. 

 

Recently, in the midst of major work stressors at the hospital, a coworker told me I was stupid to hope that things would get better--because certain people could not be trusted. I didn’t know how to respond. I wanted to still have hope, but I agreed that poor decisions were made. This prompted me to think about David’s words even more. A Jewish friend told me this reminds him of the practice of “Mussar,” focusing on inner virtues.

 

My coworker made many good points. And if you rely only on people and situations, that is a thin support for hope. People will disappoint you, often purposefully choosing the wrong path. The only logical response is anger, and a big Harrumph! That is why David says to turn to God. Only in God is found the complete absence of evil. And only in God is there a firm basis for hope. 

 

Later in the same Psalm, David says: “Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” David is speaking to the situation where evil people have the upper hand, and it looks like there is no hope. In that instance he says: “hope in God, delight in God.” Decide in your mind that there is a basis for hope: God. Then, tell your heart that not only are things going to be great in the future (whether in this life or the next), but that promise makes it worth enjoying God right now, whatever the situation.

 

Someone smiling amid suffering appears stupid. That is why my coworker was angry at me: he wanted me to wake up and smell the roses! I can understand that. And this idea should not be used to ignore evil, to allow it when we have the power to fight against it. But for those who believe that there is something more to hope in than our situation, someone greater to trust in than those who let us down, there really is reason to hope. 

 

Limits

 

           Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”   (Matt 4:5-6, NIV)

 

I have always wondered about this temptation, the second of three that the devil brings to Jesus. I understand hunger and lust of power (the other two temptations). But what attracts someone to jump off a high building? Is the devil trying to tap into Jesus’ secret bungee jumping fetish? If the devil was smart, couldn’t he pick something that would frankly be more…tempting? 

 

There are several ways of approaching this passage. If we understand the devil tapping into the desire to move and stretch and achieve beyond the limits we know and feel every day—now that is a real temptation. Who of us trying out for sports in high school did not wish for stronger limbs, more agility and coordination? How many billions are spent yearly on ways to make ourselves look more beautiful? In my field of medicine, I have not found too many people with diseases or disabilities who would prefer to hold on to them rather than be cured or improved, getting rid of the limits that they bring.

 

The devil’s implication to Jesus is: “This world has limits. Gravity is one, your weak body of water and meat is another. You don’t need those limits! Your life would be so much better without them! Jump off this tower and see how God your father will break the rules for you! Go now, free yourself from foolish limits!”

 

Jesus is not against going beyond limits. He cured a paralyzed man and a man born blind. He breaks free from death itself in his resurrection. But he knows this must be on God’s terms. He knows his place as subject to God and God’s plan for the salvation of the world. The scripture he reaches for to answer the devil has to do with this exact issue: being under the rule of God, in honor to God, quoting God’s own word from Deuteronomy 6:16: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

 

My field of medicine is fundamentally an attempt to stretch and move the limits that we are subject to in our bodies: in disease, in aging, in death. Yet every intervention comes with a trade-off. You can live longer and without infections if you have HIV, but you have to take your meds. You have to have a surgery if you want to be cured of your infected gall bladder. You can often in the modern age live longer than before, but you will still be limited by age and disease. During COVID, there was a choice to reduce peoples’ risk of the virus, but at the cost of restrictions and vaccines.

 

I had a patient recently who had treatment after treatment, was in and out of the hospital, and was not getting better. Though we had moved the limits with medical care, he was still dying. Death is the ultimate limit on a person, and his was getting closer every day. When he decided to stop the intensive and difficult treatments, my patient accepted the reality of the limits of his physical body. Paradoxically, his freedom immediately increased since he was allowed to eat, going off the strict therapy plan.

 

Jesus knew that if he jumped off the tower and he lived, he would be cheating the limit of death. But Jesus, already limiting himself to time and space the night he was born in Bethlehem, chose again to be limited by death along with the rest of us. Paradoxically, Jesus death was the method God chose to save all of us, to bring us a new life in heaven—and deliver us from this death’s limits.

 

In our modern, developed world, we may have difficulty seeing the value of limits. Advertising tells us repeatedly how limits can be overcome by the newest product. Airplanes and rocket ships promise us the world and more. The temptation is strong to ignore the message of God who gave us limits so that we might look inward and upward and not only to our own happiness and comfort. Yet the devil’s well-dressed lie is still a lie, and the word of God is still the truth. Jesus invites us to follow him and accept limits for what they are: caring guard rales placed by a loving father who would rather not see us broken on the stones below.

What should be left behind?

There is no spiritual or political scenario where you can abandon Christian virtue for the sake of the alleged greater good, and if a Christian politician abandons Christian virtue, then Christian believers should abandon him or her.

                                                                        -David French

A Little Read

 

Je vous préviens, que si vous ne me dites pas que nous avons la guerre, si vous vous permettez encore de pallier toutes les infamies, toutes les atrocités de cet Antichrist (ma parole, J’y crois)—je ne vous connais plus, vous n’êtes plus mon ami.

So starts Tolstoy's War and Peace. Ironically in French, left that way in the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation.* Character Anna Pavlovna jumps right in complaining about Napoleon, who is going to attempt the invasion of Russia, and lose over 500,000 soldiers in that futile endeavor.

*a wonderful work of translation! Try to get the out-of-print hardback edition. Why would anyone want a book that is 1250 pages long as a paperback? Unless you didn't want to actually read it. Or like I was in 1989: much too broke to afford anything but. I still have that old book. It is two volumes now, having broken in half, with yellow pages flying when I take it off the shelf to look at my underlines.

The Meaning of Medicine

"To meet people at the intersection of fear and hope and to walk with them, however briefly, with honesty and care is the true meaning of medicine." 

                                                                                    -Santoshi Billakota, MD

Renee

 

Ad hoc memorial to Renee Good, killed in Minneapolis 

Jan 7, 2026, during protest of Immigragtion and Customs 

Enforcement (ICE) activity. 

 

RENEE

 

Good to find God

The video doesn’t show

Her soul escaping up

She left us in the snow

Stained red

Good gone forever

 

The soul of the goon

Can’t escape

Sold to Lucifer 

For sign-up boon

And promises of Greatness

 

Nothing new here

A people lost their way

Shiny demons leer 

Pied piper collecting children

Renee, Poem by Paul Bunge, January 8, 2025 

Where is my heart this Thanksgiving?

 

(James Tissot, The Pharisee and The Tax Collector)

Is it with the tax collector, who sees his sin and falls on his knees before you? (Luke 18)

 

Is my heart with David, full of thanks and praise for your glory? (Psalm 100)

 

Is it stubborn and independent, ignoring God and others and searching only for comfort and distraction?  (Jeremiah 17)

 

Is it satisfied in my achievements, both material and spiritual? With gratitude yes, but looking down on those whose choices and achievements are less impressive?  (Luke 18)

 

Going off of Jesus’ leper story, my heart has a one in ten chance of actually showing thanks. Not good odds, which shows the core problem.  (Luke 17)

 

My heart cannot see you, God. It cannot seek you, it cannot hold you. For it is a stone. (Ezekiel 36)

 

Before I can thank you, before I can praise you without hypocrisy, I must know your miracle to make my heart flesh.

Provision

“Where do babies come from?” is a classic children’s question. One could call this profound, simple, and humorous question essential to childhood itself. 

 

As children, perhaps the question of origins is prompted only by curiosity. But as we get older, our search to know where things come from is essential to our being, our relationships, our jobs, and sometimes our survival.  Our lives are spent answering the questions of how do we ensure food, shelter, money, relationships, leisure, time, medical care; and, if we are well off, a fancy car, swimming pool, vacations, and a long, enjoyable retirement. 

“And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory,” says St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians (4:19).

 

This is one of many passages where the Bible re-frames our perpetual search for how to get things. God is the source of everything, from food and money to security and shelter, and, yes, even babies. Now, Paul is not dumb: he is not contradicting someone who explains how milk comes from cows, a paycheck is needed to pay the rent, and babies are a complex matter indeed. In fact, in this very chapter, Paul is talking about how one group of people supports another group. But Paul is saying that ultimately, God is the Provider. And not just ultimately, but practically and immediately. 

 

This acknowledgement that there is more than simple cause and effect to explain things, and that those who are limited to cause and effect are spiritually malnourished, is the origin of a plethora of religious practices, from all sorts of sacrifices, to Halal meats, to Thanksgiving day, to prayers before a meal. 

 

We typically find ourselves in one of two situations when it comes to provisions: either we have enough, or we don’t. The Bible reflects this, describing us either in need or in abundance. And we are called in both situations to come to God and see the reality that God is the provider. The Bible repeatedly describes God as the one who sees our needs. If we are hungry, thirsty, poor, weak, sick, or otherwise in need, the Bible says to look to the Lord who sees. To seek those things from him. To plead your case with him. If we have abundance; if we are full, satisfied, healthy, happy, and blessed with good friends and a loving family, we are called to pause and say “thank you” to God. In both situations, the call is the same: look to God. See him as the Provider. 

 

The Bible is full of case after case where one is tempted to look elsewhere when times are rough and things are scarce. Stealing, cheating, and taking shortcuts are described multiple times with the problematic results. But as the prodigal son story shows us (Luke 15), the main problem that needed solving was not that the son had wasted all his money and was longing to eat pig slop, but that he was separated from God by his bad choices, and God’s love was enough to restore the brokenness. 

 

When there is abundance, the Bible describes how we tend to ignore God who provided and run off to indulge ourselves without a second thought. Jesus cured ten people in one day of their debilitating diseases, and only one came to thank him. 

 

One cannot talk about God providing without noting the frustration and despair we may experience when he does not provide, or does not provide in the way we had hoped. The whole ancient book of Job wrestles with this question. It affirms that there is great pain and misery in this world, and there are no simple answers. One thing it does point out is that we have limited perspectives as humans, and it once again calls us to look to God, especially when we don’t have all the answers.

 

God wants us to have what we need. He wants us to enjoy food, health, love, friendships, and success. But most of all, he wants to be connected with us, as a loving father cares for his children, never stops talking about them, and is proud of their every accomplishment. In this broken world, where we cannot see God with our eyes, and our experience may suggest to us that God doesn’t care, he does see and he does care. In want and need and sickness and loss and death, knock on God’s door because he can provide. In abundance and good times, do not forget it is God who provides.  

 

 

The Holies

 

The Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls (Rome)

The final section of Paul’s letter to the Philippians (Phil 4:21-23) contains some greetings:

“Greet every saint in Christ Jesus” 

“The brethren with me greet you”

“All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar’s house”

This seems rather standard in a group letter: to send out vague greetings and blessings. But Paul is not satisfied with a normal “goodbye.” He adds religious language like “Jesus,” “saints,” and “brothers.”  Is he trying to make his goodbye contain a more religious tone? Like the written form of what would now be an emoji with a halo on top of a happy face? Or is Paul trying to say something important here about God and the identity of his friends? If we look at the words Paul uses, that may help us know more of what he is getting at.

When talking about his Christian friends in Rome, several nameless, some who visit, and some who usually work there in what serves as Paul’s house arrest, Paul calls them “saints.” This word may be confusing, so let’s look back to where Paul got the word he used in Greek, “hagios.” One interesting place we find this word is in Paul’s Bible, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures known as the Septuagint. 

Isaiah 6 is a well-known passage, where Isaiah sees a vision of God in his magnificence filling the temple, with heavenly beings flying and calling out: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts.” Isaiah is overwhelmed with the glory and responds in worship, submission, and awe. 

Paul’s Greek Bible uses the word “hagios” for “holy” in Isaiah 6. The word that describes that amazing, set-apart, pure, refined, perfect, incomprehensible, overwhelming, infinitely good nature of God. And when Paul describes his friends, he uses that same word: hagios. Your Bible probably is similar to mine, and translates it “saint.” But don’t be fooled, this is not something that someone grew into, something that these people tried really hard to achieve, or the like. This was something Paul knew in them, saw in them, realized in them. That God himself, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, by his Holy Spirit, entered these people, and Paul saw them as amazing, set-apart, pure, refined, perfect, incomprehensible, overwhelming, with that infinitely good nature of God. Despite their lowly state financially, emotionally, physically, morally, or otherwise, Paul called them holy with the angelic word that described God. He said, “The HOLIES greet you!” 

On this All Saints Day, 2025 (All Holies Day?), let us remember the amazing gift we have in ourselves and in each other, all those who have faith in Jesus. The Holy of God that He chose to put in us when he sent his son to this world. May we see this today and every day.