“To the right there? Do you see it?” This past summer I had the privilege of serving as a leader at a youth summer camp with my church. The campsite was beautiful! Imagine being in the country with tall oak trees gently cascading down rollings hills, a lake perfectly reflecting gleamers of the sun, and miles of trails. Yes it was beautiful! One particular morning, I woke up early to go on a run. During the run, I noticed the greenery on the right side of a set of steps I had to go down to get to the trails. “Leaves of three, let it be.” This is a phrase I was taught to easily identify poison ivy and lo and behold there it was…”To the right there? Do you see it?”
As I was recently scrolling through my phone, I came across this picture I took of those exact same steps. It honestly reminded me of Psalm 1:1-3….
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;
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
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.
-Psalm 1:1-3
The degradation within this passage of scripture can visually be represented with the steps. Blessed is the man…
Step 1- Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly
Step 2- Nor stands in the path of sinners
Step 3- Nor sits in the seat of the scornful
“To the right there? Do you see it?” It is interesting that poison ivy can easily be identify by three leaves because here we see three characteristics which identify the blessed man or the way of the righteous. Degradation happens over time…it’s a process. Imagine a person walking in the counsel of the ungodly. They are moving at least but eventually they get comfortable. Now they are standing in the path of sinners and are not moving at all. Eventually, they get comfortable standing and decide to go ahead and sit in the seat of the scornful. Uh oh. Do you see the degradation? I imagine this person didn’t wake up one day intending to go down a path different than the way of the righteous. It is a result of choices made over time as they became more and more comfortable.
Two more characteristics that we can see of the blessed man are…
1.) His delight is in the law of the Lord
2.) And in His law he meditates day and night
This person is intentionally seeking God. Delighting in the Word and consistently meditating the Word. I love the visual we are given in the Bible to represent this person. It says,
He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth it’s fruit in it’s season,
Whose leaf also shall not whither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.
-Psalm 1:3
That sounds like a promise to me 🙂 I believe that as we continually choose God’s way (the way of the righteous), we too are like this tree planted by the rivers of water (drawing from God, our source). We are bringing forth fruit in it’s season. Our leaf also shall not whither. And whatever we do shall prosper! Do you see yourself doing this? I can! Together let’s choose the way of the righteous 🙂
