When I see a wasp nest in our lemon tree in Brazil, I know I have an interesting job ahead.
The Wasp Nest in the Driveway
This week, someone removed a huge wasp nest from our daughter’s driveway.
With two little children and plenty of guests, the nest had to go.
Later, I found myself imagining a beautiful park with an enormous wasp nest hanging over the entrance. Children keep getting stung. The caretakers have learned to live with it.
And—in my imagination, not in the text—I can almost hear the Father say:
“I have an interesting assignment for You tomorrow, Jesus. There is a wasp nest at the temple.”
The Gospel writers tell us what Jesus did.
They leave us imagining what was happening inside Him.
What did obedience feel like for Jesus that morning?
1. Jesus Came Back the Next Morning
Mark gives us an interesting detail.
Jesus entered Jerusalem, walked into the temple, and “looked around at everything.” Then He left (Mark 11:11).
Night fell.
The next morning He was back.
Tables crashed over. Coins scattered across the stones. Animals scattered through the courts. People who had grown accustomed to the way things worked suddenly had Jesus standing in the middle of it.
Soon powerful people wanted Him dead.
Jesus had poked the bear.
The roar was almost enough to take your breath away.
None of the Gospel writers tells us what Jesus was feeling in this temple scene.
John’s account of a temple cleansing says Jesus made a whip of cords. His disciples remembered another word:
“Zeal for Your house will consume me.”
And Matthew gives us a remarkable picture.
After Jesus overturned the tables,
“those who were blind and those who limped came to Him in the temple area, and He healed them” (Matthew 21:14).
The vulnerable did not run from Jesus.
They came closer.
Then children began shouting, “Hosanna!” while the chief priests became indignant.
So what did Jesus’ zeal feel like from the inside?
Anger? Sorrow?
Maybe.
But what if there was a completely different emotion carrying Him into action?
What about joy?
I have seen something like it in Clenildo, a church-planter in Northern Brazil.
Before a difficult Amazon journey, he acts like a child heading for a candy store. He jokes and laughs while buying medicine because bad water may cause a stomach infection. Soon he will spend long hours and days on the aluminum seat of an outboard motorboat, bouncing over waves and dodging rocks. On a recent trip, their boat crossed some waves the wrong way, and Clenildo got thrown right out of the boat and into the water, “and there were piranhas in that water.”
He can hardly wait to leave.
“I want this trip to last as long as possible, with no one shortening it.”
Why?
He gets to tell people about Jesus.
And along the way they’ll catch fish for supper.
Bonus.
What looks costly from the outside can feel strangely joyful from the inside.
The unstoppable joy of obedience.
Maybe Jesus walked away from the temple that evening carrying sorrow, anger, disappointment—or something we have no word for.
But morning came.
Perhaps by then those emotions had gathered into something clearer: zeal.
Can you imagine joy bubbling up as He realized what His Father was asking Him to do?
Perhaps He was even looking forward to it.
Some roads look terrible until you know why you’re on them.
2. Don’t Let Them Set Your Temperature
Psalm 37 slowly paints a picture of a person of peace.
The wicked prosper.
They plot.
They gnash their teeth.
And God laughs.
Not because human suffering is funny.
He laughs because He sees their day coming.
God knows how this story ends.
Then the Psalm turns toward us:
“Do not get upset…” (37:1).
“Do not get upset…” (37:7).
And then:
“Cease from anger and abandon wrath; Do not get upset; it leads only to evildoing” (37:8).
Do you feel the warning?
Getting upset can pull us toward the very evil we are resisting.
That is the trap.
Someone else’s anxiety becomes our anxiety. Their contempt feeds ours. Their gnashing teeth make us clench our own.
If someone else’s anger can control our emotional temperature, they already have leverage over us.
I think of it as a log test.
When contempt starts leaking out of me, I have some work to do before I reach for somebody else’s splinter.
Psalm 37 shows us another way:
Trust in the LORD. Do good. Live in the land. Cultivate faithfulness. Delight in Him. Rest. Wait.
The wicked gnash their teeth.
The righteous delight in God.
That is the underdog’s edge.
3. God Carries the Outcome
Psalm 37’s person of peace is anything but passive.
Their mouths speak wisdom. Their tongues speak justice. They give. They lend. They keep doing good.
And they refuse to carry what belongs to God.
God carries the outcome. We carry the obedience.
Jesus lived this way.
He overturned tables when silence would have been safer.
Eventually the powers stripped Him, mocked His kingship, condemned Him, and killed Him.
They could hurt Him.
But they could not make Him become like them.
Then the empty tomb revealed who had actually won.
Jesus keeps offering us an unusual freedom.
Something in us has to die—the part that must control how the story ends.
And strangely, that is where life starts bubbling up.
There is something glorious about that kind of battle.
Listen to the Father. Let delight strengthen you. Then do what He asks, whatever it costs.
We get the adventure of obedience.
And the feast begins before the battle is over.
We are planning our third survey trip to Portugal this October. Each time, we go with a slightly different group. Each time, we try to discern a little more about how God might invite us to serve what He is already doing there.
Obedience keeps opening into relationships, surprises, and possibilities we could never have planned.
The Glorious Battle
Psalm 37 does not picture God’s people grimly hunkering down until He finally rescues them.
While the wicked are still around, the humble are already delighting themselves in abundant shalom.
The Kingdom is here.
The Kingdom is coming.
And somewhere along the way, we begin to realize:
The battle is never only about what needs to change out there. It is also about learning Jesus’ quality of living free.
Free to love without controlling.
Free to speak without demanding agreement.
Free to confront without hatred.
Free to lose without losing ourselves.
Free to wait without becoming passive.
Free to obey without controlling the ending.
That is resurrection-shaped living.
We keep dying to the old self that needs to win, retaliate, protect its image, and control the outcome. And from that surrendered ground, the life of Jesus keeps rising.
From glory to glory.
And perhaps, as God keeps dealing with the logs in our own eyes, we will hear that twinkling whisper again:
“I have an interesting job for you tomorrow.”
“Observe the blameless person, and look at the upright; For the person of peace will have a future.” — Psalm 37:37
Three things I want to remember
1. Don’t surrender your inner life to those who oppose you.
They may affect your circumstances. Do not let them decide who you become.
2. Let a little more of the old self die.
The need to win. To retaliate. To protect our image. To control the ending.
This leaves space for delight.
3. God carries the outcome.
Our responsibility is faithfulness. His responsibility is the ending.
And every surrendered outcome leaves us a little freer, a little braver, and a little more alive.
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A Prayer
Lord Jesus,
Teach us to delight in You when the odds seem impossible.
Keep us from becoming like what we resist.
Give us courage to speak justice, humility to do good, and wisdom to know when to act.
When obedience pokes the bear, keep our eyes fixed on You.
Make us people of peace— free enough to love, clear enough to act.
Free us from protecting our reputation, position, or future.
You carry the outcome. Teach us to carry the obedience.
Give us joy in the adventure, and teach us to live before an Audience of One.
Amen.
With gratitude,
Rick and Deanna
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Scripture quotations are from the NASB 2020 unless otherwise noted.
