Like the future remnant of Judah (“Praise”), may we all “take root downward, and bear fruit upward” (Isa 37:31).
Does it encourage you that, whatever lies ahead in this book, the first word we meet is “Blessed”? In its plural construction, it’s often used as an exclamation. We might translate Psalm 1:1 as, “O the happinesses of 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.” In the truest sense, this can only be said of one Man, the Man “who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” (Heb 7:26). And yet we all know the happy joy when we have, by God’s grace, made a right decision. When we chose to reject the popular world view, refuse to linger in a place of moral danger, or dilly-dally in the presence of those who despise the Lord we love, heavenly peace floods our soul. How are such decisions made? It becomes second nature when we find great pleasure in the way God thinks, and His helpful thoughts visit us round the clock as we meditate on them. Or as the psalmist puts it, “his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night” (v 2). It soon becomes evident that we’ve decided to send our roots deep into the rich soil of the Word that lies close by the river of God’s pleasure (see Ps 36:8). “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” (1:3). Those who reject heaven’s blessedness are lifeless, dry, brittle, useless, “like the chaff which the wind drives away” (v 4). Can you see that this first psalm is a kind of table of contents for the whole book? Here is the ultimate fork in life’s road: “For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish” (v 6). And that, my friend, makes ALL the difference.