Tag: Psalm 1
Ep.434: Psalm 1: Summer Squash or Trees?
Hello, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray With Me”.
Today, we continue with our prayer tutor, the psalms.
Psalm 1 says if we meditate on God’s word, we will be like trees flourishing beside a river.
James Garfield, the 20th president of the U.S., had a prior job as president of a religious college in Ohio. A parent asked to shorten the course of study for his son. Garfield replied, “What do you want for your son? God takes two months to grow a squash, but a lifetime to grow an oak.”
I like squash. It’s a quick solution to a difficult problem. But I’d rather my life was a tree. To grow tall and beautiful, the psalmist says we should delight in the law of the Lord, and meditate on it day and night.
So . . . what kind of meditation grows a tree?
First, let’s define meditation. Author Rick Warren says if you know how to worry, you already know how to meditate. If you obsess on problems, turning them endlessly over in your mind, stressing about every detail, and losing sleep over bad things that might happen, then you have lots of meditation experience. But, big oops here! You’ve been meditating on the wrong things.
Why not replace those troublesome meditations with something positive? Think about scripture. God loves you. He’s in control. He has good plans for you and for planet earth. He says your troubles are temporary. They will soon be replaced with eternal glory.
And what about those midnight meditations? Do you wake at strange hours like me? Are you up and reading and snacking on empty calories? Other times I lie in bed and worry about the world. On better nights, I might recite scripture to myself until sleep welcomes me back where I belong.
Of course, reciting scripture in the dead of night requires learning it during the day. Easier said than done. I take scripture with me when I walk the dog, when waiting in line for Costco gas, when enjoying a coffee at Tim Hortons.
As I mull over scripture, it exposes and judges my inner life. The Book of Hebrews says, “The word of God is . . . sharper than a double-edged sword . . . It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Heb 4:12).
My inner life is a hodgepodge of random thoughts and mercurial feelings, of obsessions and desires, worries and hopes. When I’m feeling harsh and cynical, I spout edgy opinions on politics and church and life.
Scripture pokes around in those thoughts and attitudes, heading off meditations on violence and sex and chaos, urging me, instead, to pray and praise.
If I were less of a worry-wart and more attentive to God’s word, I might mature into a beautiful tree instead of a lowly squash.
Let’s pray.
Our father, an old prayer invites us to hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the holy scriptures (Anglican Book of Common Prayer, Collect for the second Sunday in Advent).
Help us to do that. To strengthen our spiritual muscles that attend to your word. To underline the scriptures that you bring to our attention. To learn them by heart. To usher them into our private thoughts and public actions. As we inwardly digest the holy scriptures, may they become our source of life and growth.
May we become living trees by your river of life.
Amen.
I’m Daniel, on the channel “Pray with Me”.
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Ep.019: Psalm 1: Tree People and Chaff People
Hi, I’m Daniel Westfall on the channel “Pray with Me.”
Today we start a new prayer project: praying through the Psalms. We start with Psalm 1, which asks the question, “Do you want to be a chaff person or a tree person?”
Psalm 1 describes wicked people as chaff blown around by the wind. So what is chaff?
When the wheat is growing, the kernels are protected by an outer layer of fibre. But after harvest, you garbage the dry and useless husks, and save the edible kernels to be ground into flour.
1. Imagine a grain farmer in ancient times, using a shovel to toss his pile of grain into the air. The wind blows away the dry husks and dirt, and the good seeds fall back into the pile.
2. A modern combine takes the crop into the front and spews dirt and straw and husks out the back.
3. In World War 2, planes dropped foil-backed strips of paper into the air to confuse the enemy radar. They called it chaff. It was a cloud of paper fluttering down through the air, ending up as useless litter on the ground.
Maybe your life is like chaff: short-term, temporary, little to show for your efforts, changing direction with the weather, a cloud of dust and husks in the blowing wind. Always looking for the next hit of entertainment or drugs or religion that will mask your pain and give you relief from gnawing emptiness and angst.
Psalm 1 says there is another way to do life. Instead of being a chaff person, you could be a tree person. A tree, planted by streams of water, always green and leafy, giving a harvest of fruit. A tree person has deep roots, a tree person doesn’t dry up and blow away. A tree person becomes like Treebeard the Ent in “Lord of the Rings” — not hasty, but thoughtful, wise, and good.
Let’s pray.
Our Father, so much of our life is chaff. Our books, our movies, our video games, days on Facebook and nights surfing the net. Our lives are blowing away a cloud of dust and chaff.
Help us become tree people. To grow our roots deep into your word. To listen to our heart when it tells us to pray. To obey the spirit when it encourages us to love a neighbour. Psalm 1 says, “The Tree Person delights in the law of the Lord.” Help us to discover the delight that comes from letting go our ways of chaff, and growing roots and leaves and fruit, fed by the Spirit in streams of water and growing up into the warming sunshine of your presence.
Amen.
I’m Daniel on the channel “Pray with Me”.
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