Consider the simple faith expressed in this psalm to the Lord. A confidence that evil will be punished and that good will always prevail. The future is bright. There is no need to worry.

We might assume that the author was an idealistic youth - one who has never experienced pain or disappointment. Yet this psalm did not come from any naive child. It was written by a very old man, a man who had known incredible hardships. It is a psalm of David.

Think of David. Although from a shepherd he became king, he also knew hardship. As a youth he had to flee for his life from the jealous Saul. He felt the grief over being responsible for the death of his infant son. Later, as king, he saw his children rape and kill one another. He was forced to flee Jerusalem for his life, because his own son Absalom had rebelled. Then he regained his throne at the cost of his beloved Absalom's life.

David experienced intense pain. Yet he could advise us not to worry about those who do evil. All we need do is trust in the Lord and do good. Indeed, he claims that those who commit their way to the Lord will have everything they need, even if it be but a little in comparison with those who are evil. There is nothing in the future to fear. The good will be rewarded for their efforts.

Comparing this psalm with David's life, we may think that he had an unrealistic view of providence. But consider a similar teaching from the doctrines of the New Church: "When the Lord is present with someone, he leads him, and provides that all things which happen, whether sad or joyful, befall him for good; this is the Divine providence" (Arcana Coelestia 6303). Whatever happens - being promoted or fired, realizing our dreams or having them dashed - all result in good!

A difficult idea to accept - in large part because it seems like the Lord thereby is just manipulating us, causing evil to come into our lives.

But such is not the case. The Lord would never make anything bad happen. And He would prefer that we never suffer any pain. His providence is a gentle leading which causes good things to happen, and tolerates evil things. However He permits us to hurt ourselves and He allows others to cause us pain. Not as punishment, but as the result of free choices by individuals and groups.

One of the greatest stumbling blocks to sensing mercy in His providence is that when we feel pain or worry about serious problems we think that is all there is in life. We cannot see beyond the suffering, the hurt. But while we are occupied with worry, the Lord is already looking ahead - to what can come from the experience, to how He can lead us to grow in spite of the difficulty. For the Lord's view is eternal. He sees hope when we see none. He leads to happiness when we feel hurt.

The apparently random and purposeless events in life are described in the Heavenly Doctrines with pebbles. The Lord allows a person "to go here and there, so that the moments of his life appear like scattered pebbles. But the Lord then sees whether he fills up that space between them; He sees what is lacking and where; and then, continually, what is next in order, after a hundred or a thousand years" (Spiritual Experiences 4692[m]). The Lord's sight and providence encompasses eons of time. He sees all we are, and all we might become. He then gradually provides for it - not immediately, but over the course of an eternal lifetime. Whatever happens, whatever decisions we make, or whatever others do to us - the Lord eventually turns everything to good.

Unfortunately, our view is seldom as long. We cannot see how things will turn out in twenty, much less two thousand years. And when we are suffering our sight is even more limited. So we worry about what will happen. We may try to trust in His guidance, but we are more likely to feel abandoned by the Lord. Whatever He might be doing is both invisible and insensible to us.

In such a frame of mind we might wish we could see the future, be certain of how things will work out. If we were assured of the specific outcome, or knew exactly which path were the best to follow, we could really trust in the Lord - have confidence in Him to lead us.

Yet, in this, as in all other things, the Lord knows us better than we know ourselves. He does not hide the workings of providence from us as a test of our trust, or a puzzle for us to sort out. The Divine does not tease us. But the Lord is fully aware that if we were to know the future, or if we received the "right" answers to our specific questions by a voice out of heaven, we would wind up destroying ourselves.

Imagine what we would feel like if someone predicted every last thing that we would experience for the 24 hours. At first we would disbelieve, but what if the predictions started coming true? It would be disturbing, to say the least. And would we not begin to feel restricted, and try to prevent the predictions from coming true?

We value our freedom, our sense of self. We will protect it at all costs. When we are forced to do something, or if we are pressured into one course of action, do we not rebel, wanting to act against that pressure?

Such resistance is not adolescent or infantile reaction to authority. It stems from our inner freedom of thought. For us to be human beings we need to think things out for ourselves and then act in freedom. Whatever choices we make determine the kind of person we become - and whether our choices are good or bad, at least they make us who we choose to be, not who someone else forces us to be.

Yet, when we are confused or suffering, we have a tremendous yearning to see something of the potential the Lord sees for us and those we love. Unfortunately, if we were able to glimpse it, we would probably work against it. A paradox which can be frustrating and lead us to worry about the future.

It would be much better if we could just let go and trust the Lord to make the best of whatever we do. That is what the angels do. They have no memory of past events from their earthly life to trouble them. Nor do they have any desire to know what is to come. For they are content in the present. Imagine if we could be so fully engaged in our present activities, dealing with what we can do rather than what is beyond our power, that we had no time to worry about the future! It is a goal worth striving for.

But for now, we tend to worry. We tend to worry about our jobs, our health, our children, the international situation, our spiritual state. It can on go on and on. Certainly some amount of thoughtful consideration is important. We are meant to make plans for the future - use good judgment to provide for our families. And we can delight in looking forward to continued productivity or happier times. But planning and worrying about what might or might not occur can become excessive.

The Psalms admonish us: "Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; do not fret - it only causes harm" (37:8). Do not worry, it only causes pain. Thinking too much of the future can lead us to forget that the Lord's providence is silently guiding us. The doctrines of the New Church point out that, "a longing to know the future is innate with most people; but this longing derives its origin from the love of evil" (Divine Providence 179).

Anxiety about the future stems from a lack of confidence that the Lord can lead us to happiness. Since He works invisibly, we can think that we are the only ones who have any direct influence upon what happens. It is a subtle trust in self, and denial that the Lord can be relied upon. Certainly it appears as if we have to do all the work, but it is not the reality. For we could not have created ourselves. We can't even make ourselves happy!

So the Heavenly Doctrines describe the Lord's providence "as when one walks in thick forests, the exit out of which he does not know; but when he finds it, he attributes the discovery to himself, whereas providence meantime is as one who stands in a tower, sees the wanderings of such a person, and leads him without his knowing it to the place of exit" (Spiritual Experiences 4393). The Lord is in the tower, inspiring our thoughts, motivating our actions so that we can be led from darkness into light.

But His guiding can only be effective when we cooperate. We have to search for ways out of the forest. The Lord gave us the ability to think so we would use it. If we sit back and ponder our situation, how hopeless it may seem, little is accomplished. Can we add one cubit to our height by worrying about it? We also need to act. If we stand around and complain about how lost we are, or how unfair life is, it is very difficult for the Lord to lead us anywhere. He will not drag us out of our forests against our wills.

It is as the Psalm said: "Trust in the Lord and do good." Such simple advice, but so true! We cannot alter the past, but we can do something in the present, enabling the Lord to create a happy future.

There will still be times of selfishness where we long to know how things could possibly work out, and there will still be things happening to us which are not pleasant. We cannot control life. But we can avoid being defeated by it. We have been given the knowledge of how the Lord operates to bring about happiness in the long term. We have been given the freedom to act with reason. We have the basis for trusting in Him.

Let us then listen to the Psalm, not worrying about the future, not worrying about what is or what might be. Let us do the good that we can, and leave the rest to the Lord. After all, He should be able to do a much better job than we. Let us commit our ways to the Lord, trusting in Him, and He can give us the heavenly desires of our hearts.

(References: Arcana Coelestia 6303; Divine Providence 176; Spiritual Experiences 2178, 4393, 4692)

5135. 'For I have indeed been taken away by theft' means that evil caused celestial things to become alienated. This is clear from the representation of 'Joseph', who says this about himself, as the celestial within the natural, dealt with in 5086, 5087, 5106, and consequently the celestial things there; and from the meaning of 'being taken away by theft' as undergoing alienation caused by evil. For 'to commit theft' means to alienate, while 'theft' itself means the evil which causes alienation, as well as meaning evil which lays claim to the things existing there in the natural. 'Theft' means an alienation caused by evil that happens in the place which such evil takes possession of; for it expels everything good and true and fills up that place with evils and falsities. 'Theft' also means its laying claim to what belongs to others; for it takes to itself everything good and true in that place and makes such its own as well as attaching it to evils and falsities. But to enable anyone to know what is meant by 'theft' in the spiritual sense, a statement must be made about what happens to evils and falsities when they enter in and take possession of a place, and also when they lay claim to everything good and true there.

[2] From infancy to childhood, and sometimes on into early youth, a person is absorbing forms of goodness and truth received from parents and teachers, for during those years he learns about those forms of goodness and truth and believes them with simplicity - his state of innocence enabling this to happen. It inserts those forms of goodness and truth into his memory; yet it lodges them only on the edge of it since the innocence of infancy and childhood is not an internal innocence which has an influence on the rational, only an external one which has an influence solely on the exterior natural, 2306, 3183, 3494, 4563, 4797. When however the person grows older, when he starts to think for himself and not, as previously, simply in the way his parents or teachers do, he brings back to mind and so to speak chews over what he has learned and believed before, and then he either endorses it, has doubts about it, or refuses to accept it. If he endorses it, this is an indication that he is governed by good, but if he refuses to accept it, that is an indication that he is governed by evil. If however he has doubts about what he has learned and believed before, it is an indication that he will move subsequently either into an affirmative attitude of mind or else into a negative one.

[3] The truths that a person learns and believes in his earliest years when he is a young child but which later on he either endorses, has doubts about, or refuses to accept, are in particular these: There is God, and He is one; He created everything; He rewards those who do what is good and punishes those who do things that are bad; there is life after death, when the bad go to hell and the good go to heaven, and so there is a hell and a heaven; the life after death lasts for ever; also, people ought to pray every day and to do so in a humble way; they ought to keep the sabbath day holy, honour their parents, and not commit adultery, kill, or steal; and many other truths like these. Such truths are learned and absorbed by a person from earliest childhood; but if, when he starts to think for himself and to lead his own life, he endorses them, adding to them further truths of a more interior kind, and leads a life in conformity with them, all is well with him. But if he starts to disobey them, refusing at length to accept them, then even though outwardly he leads a life in conformity with them, because the law and society expect him to do so, he is governed by evil.

[4] This evil is what is meant by 'theft', to the extent that thief-like it usurps the position held previously by good. With many people it is thief-like to the extent that it takes away the forms of goodness and truth previously there and uses them to lend support to evils and falsities. So far as is possible with these people the Lord removes the forms of goodness and truth absorbed in early childhood from where these are to a more internal position, where - within the interior natural - He stores them away for future use. These forms of goodness and truth that are stored away within the interior natural are meant in the Word by 'the remnant', dealt with in 468, 530, 560, 561, 660, 661, 1050, 1738, 1906, 2284. But if evil steals the forms of goodness and truth there and uses them to lend support to evils and falsities, especially if it does so by the use of deceit, it destroys those remnants; for in this case it mingles evil with good, and falsity with truth, to such an extent that one cannot be separated from the other; and then a person is done for.

[5] The fact that 'theft' means the kinds of things mentioned above may be seen from the mere use of that word to refer to what constitutes a person's spiritual life. For the only riches in that life are cognitions of good and truth, and the only possessions and inheritances are the different forms of happiness in life which are gained from forms of good and from truths deriving from these. The stealing of such things, as stated above, is what 'theft' relates to in the spiritual sense, and therefore by the thefts mentioned in the Word nothing else is meant in the internal sense, as in Zechariah,

I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold, a flying scroll. Then he said to me, This curse is going out over the face of the whole land, for everyone committing theft from now on, according to it, will be innocent, and everyone swearing falsely, according to it, will be innocent. I have cast it forth, that it may enter the house of the thief, and the house of him swearing falsely by My name, and may pass the night in his house and consume it, both its timbers and its stones. Zechariah 5:1-4.

Evil which takes away remnants of good is meant by 'one committing theft' and by 'the house of the thief', and falsity which takes away remnants of truth by 'one swearing falsely' and by 'the house of him swearing falsely'. 'The face of the whole land' stands for the whole Church, which is why the statement is made that the curse will consume the house, both its timbers and its stones - 'house' meaning the natural mind or a person so far as that mind is concerned, 3128, 3538, 4973, 5023, 'timbers' the forms of good present there, 2784, 2812, 3720, 4943, and 'stones' the truths, 643, 1298, 3720.

[6] Profanation and a consequent removal of goodness and truth are meant in the spiritual sense by the action of Achan, who took some of 'the devoted things' - a mantle of Shinar, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold - and hid them in the earth in the middle of his tent, on account of which he was stoned and everything was burned, as described in Joshua,

Jehovah said to Joshua, Israel has sinned; they have transgressed My covenant which I commanded them, and have taken some of that which was devoted; they have committed theft, have lied, and have put it among their own vessels. Joshua 7:11, 12, 25.

'The devoted things' meant falsities and evils, which were not on any account to be mixed with anything holy. 'A mantle of Shinar, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold' in the spiritual sense are specific types of falsity. 'Hiding them in the earth in the middle of the tent' meant a mingling with things that are holy - for 'a tent' means that which is holy, see 414, 1102, 1566, 2145, 2152, 3312, 4128, 4391, 4599. Such was the meaning of the declaration that they had committed theft, lied, and put [what was devoted] among their own vessels; for 'vessels' means holy truths, 3068, 3079, 3316, 3318.

[7] In Jeremiah,

I will bring the disaster ¹ of Esau upon him, the time I will visit him. If grape-gatherers come to you, will they not leave grape-gleanings? if thieves in the night, will they not destroy a sufficiency? I will strip Esau bare, I will uncover his secret places, and he will not be able to be concealed. His seed has been laid waste, and his brothers, and his neighbours; and he is no more. Jeremiah 49:8-10.

'Esau' stands for the evil of self-love to which falsities have been allied, 3322. The destruction by this evil of the remnants of good and truth is meant by the statements that 'thieves in the night will destroy a sufficiency' and that 'his seed has been laid waste, also his brothers and his neighbours, and he is no more'. 'Seed' stands for truths which are those of faith grounded in charity, 1025, 1447, 1610, 1940, 2848, 3038, 3310, 3373; 'brothers' for forms of good which are those of charity, 367, 2360, 2508, 2524, 3160, 3303, 3459, 3815, 4121, 4191; 'neighbours' for the adjoining and related forms of truth and good which belong to it.

[8] A similar reference to Esau occurs in Obadiah,

If thieves come to you, if those who overturn in the night - how you will have been cut off! - will they not steal that which is enough for themselves? If grape-gatherers come to you, will they not leave some clusters? Obad. verse 5.

'Grape-gatherers' stands for falsities which are not a product of evil. These falsities do not destroy the forms of goodness and truth - that is, the remnants - stored away by the Lord in a person's interior natural. But falsities that are the product of evils do destroy them, for they steal forms of truth and good and also use them, through misapplication of them, to lend support to evils and falsities.

[9] In Joel,

A great and mighty people, like heroes they will run, like men of war they will scale the wall; and they will pass on, every one on his way. They will run about the city, they will run on the wall, they will climb into the houses, they will go in through the windows like a thief. Joel 2:7, 9.

'A great and mighty people' stands for falsities fighting against truths, 1259, 1260; and because they fight in a mighty way, by destroying truths, they are spoken of as 'heroes' and 'like men of war'. 'The city' through which they are said to run about stands for matters of doctrine regarding truth, 402, 2268, 2449, 2712, 2943, 3216; 'the houses which they will climb into' stands for the forms of good which they destroy, 710, 1708, 2048, 2233, 3128, 3652, 3720, 4982; 'the windows which they will go through' stands for intellectual concepts and for reasonings derived from these, 655, 658, 3391. This being so, those falsities are compared to a thief because they usurp the position held previously by truths and forms of good.

[10] In David,

Since you hate discipline and cast away My words behind you, if you see a thief you run with him, and your part is with adulterers. You open your mouth towards evil, and with your tongue you frame deceit. Psalms 50:17-19.

This refers to someone wicked, 'running with a thief' standing for his use of falsity to alienate truth from himself.

[11] In Revelation,

They did not repent of their murders, or of their enchantments, or of their whoredoms, or of their thefts. Revelation 9:21.

'Murders' stands for evils which destroy forms of good, 'enchantments' for falsities from these which destroy truths, 'whoredoms' for falsified truths, 'thefts' for forms of good that have consequently been alienated.

[12] In John,

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the sheepfold but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me he will be saved, and will go in, and will go out, and will find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. John 10:1-2, 8-10.

'A thief' in this instance also stands for the evil of merit-seeking, for anyone who takes away from the Lord that which is His and claims it as his own is called 'a thief'. This evil closes the path so as to prevent the flow of good and truth from the Lord, for which reason it is referred to as 'killing and destroying'. Much the same is meant in the Ten Commandments, at Deuteronomy 5:19, by You shall not steal, 4174. From all this one may see what is meant in the spiritual sense by the laws laid down in the Jewish Church regarding thefts, such as those at Exodus 21:16; 22:1-4; Deuteronomy 24:7; for all laws in that Church had their origin in the spiritual world, and they therefore correspond to the laws of order which exist in heaven.

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