Reflections on Psalm 1..

While meditating on the very first Psalm on this first day of the year in 2008, God showed me a new meaning in Psalm 1. Usually what I would do during QT while reading His word would be to just paraphrase the things that “jump out” at me. For me, verses 2 & 3 are the crux of this psalm.

2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

But today, I was very motivated to move beyond just doing this. I chose to meditate on these 2 verses. I learnt from Rick Warren’s “Bible Study Methods” the definition of meditation - to think over and over about a thought. I also read somewhere in the book that one way to meditate is to put yourself in that situation described in the chapter. Since verse 2 was about a tree by the river, I imagined a tree next to a river in lush greenery and then imagined myself walking towards the tree. As I walked closer to the tree, I observed that the tree has big strong roots. At the metaphorical level, simply by reading the verse one would know that we are the tree, and our source of life is the river, who is God. But upon meditation, God showed me as I looked closer at the roots of the tree that:

1) Water enters the tree by the roots first, so the roots will receive the nutrients first. Which is important because the tree needs to develop a strong foundation before anything else can occur. In the same way, when I seek the Lord’s law, His word nourishes me by first establishing my foundation in Him, before I can bear any fruit. And when I am firmly established in His word, no wind can move me, no rain can drown me.

2) The tree takes time to grow and as it grows, the roots continue to grow bigger as well, thus making the tree stable and grounded. In the same way, I need time to grow and I will bear fruit in season. My passion and obedience in doing all that is pleasing to Him and according to His will, will also take time to show fruitfulness, which is why trust and patience is a must.
The most exciting thing was the fact that as I found new meaning in His word, I became very fascinated by what I read and meditated upon. I realized that when I really desire to seek Him, He speaks to me in such clarity that I know it is Him. The new knowledge I’ve gained is because of He chose to reveal it to me. And I even want to give more glory to Him because of what happened next.

Because we are doing A Psalm A Day as a church, a covenant that we’ve made with God, we have planned out devotional materials that will equip us in reading the 150 Psalms. When I finished meditating upon Psalm 1, I opened up the devotional material that was given to me. Lo and behold!! This was what was written about Psalm 1 - “To take delight is to be thrilled - imagine how your eyes suddenly widen, your face beams into a happy smile and your heart feels a nice fuzzy warmth. Yes that is how God wants us to feel when we approach the Word. What we like, we would think more about it, BE FASCINATED AND AMAZED BY IT: and that’s the very meaning of meditation. Meditation was never meant to be a deliberate, laborious chore, it’s a natural connection to what we are drawn to.“

Tears rolled down my cheeks at the delight of knowing I found delight in His word. God is GREAT! I desire for my fascination with His word to grow even stronger tomorrow morning. But I also pray that in the next 149 days, if I don’t feel like God has revealed anything to me on any of the days, I will not be discouraged but to trust that He will reveal to me in due time.

Xiuting.