What a happy and blessed life belongs to those who do not follow the paths of wickedness and cynicism, but their delight is in God’s law, and they meditate on it day and night.
Here is how the book of Psalms begins. Beatitude, an excited pronouncement of blessing, happiness, and good fortune for those who allow themselves to be rooted in a daily diet of scripture, contrasted with the emptiness of being rooted in nothing. These blessed, happy, fortunate ones “delight” in scripture. We’re safe to assume this delight is not like the temporary pleasure of a good meal, but something much deeper. The blessed, happy, fortunate life is the one that will allow holy scripture to penetrate the heart, touching the deepest of human desires – to be with God. That’s Psalm 1’s definition of delight.
And this coming to scripture is not a one-time thing, nor is it opening the Bible only for reading comprehension. This blessed life is pronounced on those who “meditate” on scripture “day and night.” This is coming to scripture, and then coming back. And again and again. Day after night after day after night. This is to read scripture, but also to let scripture read us. It is to not only read and understand, although that is a tremendously good thing as well. It is to be formed by the words of the Bible, to be changed by them, to bear the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control) because it’s what the Bible has planted and nourished in us over time.
Planted and nourished. That’s the image Psalm 1 gives us. A tree on the riverbank. Those who delight in God’s word “are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves never wither.” When we look at the leaves and fruit on the tree and then follow the whole image backwards, we see next the branch, bigger and stronger as it connects to the full body of the tree. Then we follow the tree trunk down to its robust roots in the soil right next to the stream. This tree is never separated from its source of nutrition. Forever connected to that which gives it life and health, it will never fail to produce what it was created to produce. In the same way, when we see the person whose life is constantly producing the fruit of the Spirit, we can surely trace it back to a life daily rooted in scripture, in that which gives lasting nutrition to the blessed, happy, fortunate life.
“The wicked are not so,” continues to Psalmist, “but are like chaff that the wind drives away.” The life of wickedness and cynicism are rooted in nothing. Like chaff that is pale and brittle, it has nothing to nourish or root it. And so Psalm 1 ends by nodding to eternity. “The LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” Just as chaff blows away and disappears, the life that is unrooted in God’s word is something that will, in God’s time, come to no longer exist at all. But the daily practice of meditating on scripture is to put eternity into practice, opening ourselves up to the Life that cannot pass away.
So let us come to scripture, and then come back, and come back. Over and over again, yes to read and study and understand, but even more importantly to be shaped by the Holy Spirit, who is lying in wait in those pages of the Bible, ready to jump up at us off the page, when we expect it and when we don’t.
0 Comments