Psalm 1: a constant relationship with God equals real ROI
The reading of the NJB footnotes proved once again to be insightful! Verse 2 reads: “… and murmurs His law day and night.” The footnotes say about the word “murmurs”: “Reading in an undertone, a meditative prayer… as opposed to the loud cry of the prayer under trial.” This is amazing to me, and it shows that nothing is a coincidence when it comes to God. You see, yesterday I wrote about Psalm 30, and I said that it’s better to stay close to God all the time, rather than stray away then cry to Him when I need help. I wasn’t planning to write about Psalm 1 today, yet I felt led to be thorough and start writing about the Psalms from the start, if I wanted to write about them in succession. Imagine my surprise to see the insight that God had given me yesterday reinforced in today’s psalm! How wonderful God is! And how true it is, that it is better to have a constant, close relationship with Him rather than a roller-coaster ride, where we’re close, then stray and get into trouble, then come to Him again, only to fall again… That’s not a real relationship. How would you feel if your wife did that to you? No, a true relationship is based on trust and constancy, and Psalm 1 drives this point home very well!
When I have such a relationship with God, the benefits are made readily apparent here. I “bear fruit in season”, which means I develop properly as a Christian and as a human being. When God expects me to deliver, I do. When people expect me to deliver, I do. I function well and I am blessed. I fulfill my purpose as a tree, or as a part of God’s creation. My “leaves never wither”, which means that I am constantly refreshed, spiritually and physically, by my connection to God, and it shows on the outside. People can tell I’m in touch with God, it radiates from within me. I do not lose any of my wit, or my intelligence, my strength of character, my talents, because I misuse my body or my mind. Instead, everything develops as God intended it, and I bring glory to God and honor to myself. “Every project succeeds”, because I stay on task and God blesses my endeavors. God watches over everything I do and doesn’t let me fall. He ensures that I reach my goals, because He has a vested interest in me and I enable Him to work in my life by staying close to Him.
“How different the wicked, how different!” They are “chaff blown around by the wind”, the psalm says. Have you ever seen chaff? It’s deceiving, really. Chaff are the empty husks or shells or pods of grains and dry legumes. If the wind isn’t blowing, and you’re simply looking at it, it appears as if it’s the real thing, but were you to test it by touching it, you’d see it’s nothing but a shell, the appearance of the former thing. Such are the wicked. They have spent their inner substance, their very soul is corrupt, and they cannot possibly stand God’s trial under fire. Their destiny is “doomed” because they have engaged in evil things, have denied God’s love and forgives, and even mocked it.
Have you ever done something evil? There is hope, right here in the words of this psalm! “How blessed is anyone who rejects the advice of the wicked and does not take a stand in the path that sinners tread, nor a seat in company with cynics, [or the "scornful", as the KJV puts it] but who delights in the law of Yahweh and murmurs His law day and night.” Don’t worry, you don’t have to go around literally murmuring God’s law. The point is to avoid evil and to think upon God and God’s law, to meditate upon it. That’s the right kind of meditation, the kind endorsed by the Bible. It involves active thinking and reasoning. It forces us to exercise our free will and intellect in order to reason for ourselves what it is that we ought to do. It’s a necessary process of religious self-discovery, a rite of passage, if you will, that allows us to become stronger in our faith, and get closer to God.
