We hope this week's devotional will encourage you in your spiritual walk. You are welcome to share this and include it in your church newsletters if you wish; we just ask that you please give credit to NTC and the author. Thank you!
Psalm 1 (CEB)
1 The truly happy person doesn’t follow wicked advice,
doesn’t stand on the road of sinners, and doesn’t sit with the disrespectful.
2 Instead of doing those things, these persons love the Lord’s Instruction,
and they recite God’s Instruction day and night!
3 They are like a tree replanted by streams of water, which bears fruit at just the right time
and whose leaves don’t fade. Whatever they do succeeds.
4 That’s not true for the wicked! They are like dust that the wind blows away.
5 And that’s why the wicked will have no standing in the court of justice—
neither will sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6 The Lord is intimately acquainted with the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked is destroyed.
Devotional Thought
The Bible’s wisdom literature—including Psalm 1 and the book of Job preceding it—was placed in the canon at the end of the narratives of Israel’s up and down journey with God that ultimately had led them into and out of exile. Israel’s sages look back and reflect artistically on this lived experience. They hope to persuade hearers to live well. These sages challenge people to choose between the metaphorical “two ways” or “two paths,” and these choices will provide meaning in life and will have consequences for self and for community. Job, whose story has just concluded, represents the person described in the first three verses of this Psalm. He had not followed poor advice or disrespected those around him. Instead, he sat with God during life’s most trying and bewildering moments. Twice God had described Job as a person unlike any other on earth “who is honest, who is of absolute integrity, who reveres God and avoids evil” (Job 1:8, 2:3). No examples are explicitly given in the book of Job of those walking the “wicked” path at the other end of the spectrum (Psalm 1:4-6). Assuredly that is the broad and wide path that many follow, yet they are “like dust” and the wind has blown the memory of them away. In reality, most people—like Job’s friends—live in the middle of the two extremes, sometimes leaning on God and sometimes on their own wisdom. Psalm 1, however, persuades those who will listen to walk on the path of absolute integrity. This path is found by exposing ourselves to God and to God’s instruction (Ps 1:2-3). We are replanted by “streams of water” where we will grow and flourish, and be fruitful. As a tree benefits its surroundings with oxygen, fruit, and protection from erosion, our communities will likewise benefit when we choose this path of integrity.
Prayer: God, may we be replanted in your nourishing presence and may we truly love your transformative instruction. May you receive glory as we seek to live lives of integrity and may others be nourished and challenged to choose this path as well.
Rev Dr Linda Stargel
Academic Dean