Absorbed....

A couple of people have passed on suggestions for helping to organise Deployed a little better. One of them is to use Psalms whenever we come to a break in a study. New Studies will always start on a Monday, so when one comes to an end we’ll look at some Psalms in the ‘between’ time.

So having finished Galatians, let us without any imagination start with Psalm 1!

Psalm 1
1 Blessed is the man

Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,

Nor stands in the path of sinners,

Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;

2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,

And in His law he meditates day and night.

3 He shall be like a tree

Planted by the rivers of water,

That brings forth its fruit in its season,

Whose leaf also shall not wither;

And whatever he does shall prosper.

4 The ungodly are not so,

But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,

Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

6 For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,

But the way of the ungodly shall perish.

Psalms are poetry. They use imagery, metaphor and at times exaggeration in order to touch our emotions. As a result it is best to read them as a whole and ask ourselves what the poet wanted us to feel, rather than pick out individual verses and debate them (unless of course the Psalm is 150 verses long – there’s a year’s study…..)

Two feelings come out from this poem.

The first is that the eternal destiny of the righteous and the ungodly will be different. This is a major theme of the entire Bible, that those who stand against God in this life will be without him in the next. Besides eternity this life is transitory, and the images of plants withering and being blown away by the wind emphasise this – in our garden stand some sunflowers that while magnificent only a few weeks ago are withering away to nothingness now. Each time the wind comes more of them are blown away….

But the man who is righteous, who does not live like the ungodly, he receives the protection and care of God. Someone like this delights in doing God’s will. The poet says they meditate on it day and night. They absorb it, they know it, they allow it to permeate their hearts so that it transforms them from the inside out. You can spot these people: they are faithful, peaceful, expectant, hopeful and winsome. They are full of life. They standout in this world. And for a person like this God is on their side, and they prosper. It might not be materially, but somehow they know that they are at the centre of God’s will for their lives – and that is what they live for.

Poems, songs, music all strives to move your heart. This poem of God should move yours too: if this is a how God moves in the life of a Godly person, then I want to be one!

Deployed breaks for the weekend again, and returns with a new study on Monday 11th September.