“Is this more of a yahoo or a boohoo breakfast?”

This was the question my girlfriends and I asked each other years ago while crowded around a Panera table, half an hour after Kindergarten Drop-Off Day One. Believe me, there was a range of emotions that morning, from giddy freedom to downright despair!

Fast forward and I’m at the stage of helping (ok, mostly watching) my youngest packs to return for year two of college drop off while my oldest gathers final addresses to send out wedding invitations. I’m keenly aware I’m going to need a new Yahoo/BooHoo moment with friends.

Once again, just over here trying to own that full range of emotions.

The achy joy of this season might explain my urgency to slip in wisdom nuggets when I’m with these amazing young adults we have somehow launched. Did I teach you enough about budgeting, on getting the car serviced, on how to make the biggest of life decisions a person can make? That may also explain my fascination with parents in the Bible who wrote down godly wisdom for their kids. There’s the brilliant queen mother in Proverbs 31 and Solomon’s compositions addressed to his sons in Proverbs 1-7.  The past few days, though, I’ve been soaking up Psalm 37, a Hebrew alphabet acrostic by King David.

No shocker perhaps, that David wrote Psalm 37. After all, he was “the sweet psalmist of Israel” (2 Sam 23:1) who wrote much of that book of praises, laments, and hymns of thanksgiving. However, Psalm 37 is different. It reads more like the wisdom literature of Proverbs than other psalms, more like a personal letter in poetic verse from parent to son. Older and looking over his life, David wrote down the ABC’s—or more accurately the Aleph א , Beth ב, and Gimel ג —of wisdom gleaned from trusting God. See why it’s drawing me in as I think about hiding a note in a dorm-destined box or slipping a card in with our wedding gift to the happy couple?

You may not be in the same place with your family that I am, but I bet young people you love likely ARE moving into some new season, and you, too, may be thinking of words of wisdom you’d like to tuck into a personal note. Let’s take our cue from three characteristics of Psalm 37 to create something meaningful!

1. Memorable – David began each verse with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Though our translations render Psalm 37:1 as “Do not fret because of those who are evil,” in Hebrew the phrase starts with the word ’al (meaning “not”) and thus, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, aleph (א). Yes, an acrostic is a poetic form, but as Dr. Lewis, one of my TBS professors, points out, acrostics are great memory tools, especially important in a society that transmitted lots of information orally. David crafted wisdom into a form that could be memorized and treasured. Now, unless something comes to me in a dream soon, I’m not writing a brilliant acrostic, but I, too, want my son to remember whatever I write. I plan to remind him of a favorite family memory we both treasure and tie that rich experience to the encouragement I’d like him to remember.

2. Theological – No brainer that David wrote about God, right? I mean, this is the Bible. But when David wrote this psalm, would he have known you and I would be reading it as part of Holy Scripture? David wrote about the wisdom of trusting God not because he was preaching a sermon, but because he had experienced God as trustworthy. He witnessed God bring forth righteousness and judgement (v6), sustain His people over the long haul (v17), and hold godly people securely so that when they stumbled, they didn’t fall or, to use the NASB wording, they weren’t “hurled headlong” (v24). I can give a lot of advice—lock your doors, pay attention in class, choose friends carefully—but the best wisdom I can share is about the character of God and His promises to His people.

3. Personal – I was oddly moved when I learned that the verbs and pronouns in the opening ten verses are singular. OK, bear with this English major mama: what the commentator meant was that David penned these words personally directed to an individual. This was not David addressing the crowd as king. This was David the “graybeard” (The Message 37:25) talking to a specific someone whom he wanted to see flourish in life and faith. When he says, “Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil” (v8), David is every parent counseling a beloved young adult, “Reacting in rage is never going to be the answer. Rise above the anger before it’s too late!” In fact, much of this psalm is about trusting God when the world says, “Be angry, frustrated, and despairing,” which makes me wonder what David noticed in his particular listener that needed specific, individualized encouragement. In the same way, I know my children, and that’s why even though I could pull some inspirational quotes from far more clever writers, I want to be personal in what I say because I want these particular people to flourish in life and faith.

So, whether you add a few post-its to lunch boxes, prop a letter on a bathroom counter, or leave a note stuck to a laptop for that kid beginning a first job, I hope you’ll be encouraged that your words DO mean a lot. In the achy joy of it all, let’s pray these words over our kids from verses 23-24:

The Lord makes firm the steps
    of the one who delights in him;
though he may stumble, he will not fall,
    for the Lord upholds him with his hand.

Photo credit: Álvaro Serrano on Unsplash