Psalm 1

Psalm 1:1-2 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.

My first inclination when I read Psalm 1 today was to whiz through it like I usually do but right away I was stopped because when I read verse 1 I just had to stop and think on it. I think sometimes the Spirit in us just says; hold up here, there’s something I want to show you.

Verse 1 is a very simple verse, it’s not difficult to understand, it doesn’t require a lot of explanation, but there are so many implications that even for my own sake I feel the need to write about it.

The first phrase is blessed is the man. The Hebrew word for blessed is “esher” is in the pleural form and is used here as an interjection. Because of that, the translation isn’t quite accurate. Instead of “blessed”, it would be more accurate to say “Oh how blessed!” or “Oh how happy is the man!” including the exclamation point. It is intended to be forceful.

Who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
You could say; “who does not order his life according to the advice of unbelievers”. Man, this really gripped me. Don’t we do that all the time? I mean, seriously. Most of our lives look a whole lot like the lives of unbelievers. We do take their advice. Maybe I don’t go to an unbeliever and ask for advice on matters related to my faith. But I might on other matters. And it strikes me as I read my own words that everything is a spiritual matter. Our finances, our job, our plans, where we live; are all spiritual matters. But this doesn’t just mean physically asking for advice. More so it really means that our lives shouldn’t look like their lives. We send our kids to schools run by unbelievers. We put money into the stock market so we can retire to the beach in Florida. Even in many churches, we take marketing advice from secular firms to try and figure out how to get people to come. Some churches play secular music and dumb down the messages calling them “spiritual” rather than Christian so as not to offend. My point here by the way is not to pick out any particular thing like schooling, retirement, or church marketing and call it evil. Each of us should consider our individual situations before God and arrive at our own conclusions. What I am saying is that I think sometimes I’m a bit too quick to simply accept the world’s way and pattern my life like anyone else rather than going to God and asking Him how He would have me order my life. This brings me to verse 2.

But his delight is in the law of the LORD
The alternative to patterning your life after the unbeliever is to go to the bible for advice for living. Instead of patterning our life after the world, we should be patterning it after the Word. When we take delight in the word, when we meditate on the word (think about it) rather than on the worlds ways what happens?

Psalm 1:3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

When we go to the word we find there the source of life and growth that will not dry up, it is always there to provide the nourishment we need to continue growing and eventually produce fruit.