Desires Perish

 . . . the desires of the wicked will perish.

 - From Psalm 112

The entire 112th Psalm is an allegory of the world, and America in particular, in 2020.

It describes, in some detail, the status of the righteous: the people of God - those that have put their trust in Him. Paraphrasing, it states that:

They fear God. They have put Him first. They bow to no other before Him.

The do quite well in life. They are successful and prosperous. They live in safety. They've got money, or other resources. They are very happy, and they do not worry about trouble coming to them.

They do not listen to rumors of bad things that might happen to them (rumors of evil).

They are fair in their dealings. Fair and honest.

They are charitable. They give freely and generously, to help the poor.

Their good station in life will extend past their own lives, for many generations. They prepare their children, and grandchildren to manage their business in much the same way. They care about future generations.

They care about their family, their extended family, their neighborhood, their community, their country. They make others' business their own. They are their brothers' and sisters' keepers, which is to say, they make it their responsibility to ensure that those worse off than they, are okay.

Now here's the really critical part . . .

Evil people hate this about them. Strange, but true. For whatever reason, a person doing well in life, and that is charitable to others, seems always to end up with a horde of other people that hate them.

A Liberal friend of mine once told me his theory of why the US is so controversial. He said "People hate us because people will always hate Number One. That's why they hate the Yankees. And why they hate Notre Dame." (It was a long time ago).

Hate does not pause to reflect. It does not automatically self-monitor. Hate feeds on itself and quite naturally becomes an obsession. Think about a married couple, good friends of yours, where both partners are good, honest, and honorable people. If they were to go through a divorce, they might suddenly turn on the other, expressing hate towards him or her. They call each other vile names - liar being perhaps the chief most popular pejorative in the divorce playbook.

Wealthy people do their charity in anonymity at their own risk. Hate will assume they are hoarding money, and keeping it from those that need it . . . or they that did all the work for it.

Most people in privileged situations long to have others get to the same point. When you arrive at the top of the heap in terms of power, money, or fame, it is natural for most people to want to elevate others to the same spot. The wealthy person that wants to keep others down is a rarity. I have no research to support this assertion, but I would make it a very confident hypothesis.

It doesn't matter. "Wealthy" is a very perilous status to attain. It puts a target on your back. The wealthy person must double down on having all the other good attributes listed in the Psalm. And then to remember that the desires of the wicked - - - the violence, the anger, the intrigue, the manipulations - - - all of the telltale evidence that someone is down the wrong path, will go away. A "desire" is, after all, an emotional longing for something that feels good. Hate can trigger a chemical reaction that feels good. But emotions are temporary. They drive some strategies, or even ideologies, that come and go. People get tired of it.

The forward path of success for all . . . of good and generous people of means . . . of the eventual Kingdom of God where all injustice will finally be eradicated . . . cannot be stopped.