Today’s reading is Psalm 1.
The blessed avoid the counsel of the wicked and instead delight in God’s Law. What?! Delight in Law? Really? Who’s going to do that? Law is restrictive and confining. Law is a real downer. It is always telling me what I can’t do when I want to and what I have to do even if I don’t want to. It’s going to be really hard for me to delight in any Law, even God’s. However, this is a complete misunderstanding of Law. Think about the law of the road. It is true that there are some laws that restrict activities. We are told when we can go, how fast we can go, what direction we should go. Yet, it is all those rules that actually allow us to go safely. Driving is a dangerous prospect as is, but imagine if there were no laws and everyone was just doing whatever they felt like in the given moment. That would be a truly frightening prospect, one that would keep many of us off the road for fear. But the law of the road sets us free to drive in relative safety. Can we delight in that kind of law? Sure. God’s law is very similar. Rather than merely a restrictive code of conduct, think of God’s Law as a map. In fact, Torah, the word translated “Law” here can mean a way or a direction. His Law is telling us the way to find Him. It is telling us where He is, where He hangs out. If I decide to ignore a map, I’m not objectively punished for breaking the map rules. But I never get to my destination which is punishment enough. Not getting to God, being away from Him is most certainly punishment enough. In fact, we call that hell. Just like I can delight in a map that gets me to my family or friends in distant places, I can delight in a Law that leads me to God. Praise the Lord!
Tomorrow’s reading is Psalm 1.
A Word for Our Kids
Hey kids, the person who delights in God’s law also meditates on God’s law. Here is a key point about meditation. If you’ve seen someone meditating on TV, you’ve probably seen them sitting on the floor, legs crossed, fingers templed together, eyes closed, humming. If you look up how to meditate online, you’ll read things about focusing on your breathing and emptying your mind and trying to think of nothing. That kind of meditating may be good as a relaxation or calming exercise, but it is not God’s kind of meditating. In fact, pursuing that kind of meditation as a spiritual practice is based on a false notion of God and is actually part of the counsel of sinners that we should avoid. Biblical meditation is not emptying our minds of all thought, rather it is the exact opposite. Biblical meditation is filling our minds with thoughts of God, His Will, His Word, His Law. It is focusing our minds on His miraculous works. It is often done with our eyes and Bibles open as we think, focus, meditate on how amazing our God is allowing His greatness to fill our minds. Why not try it today? Open your Bible to Genesis 1 and then just think about God’s power exercised in creation. What else does it make you think of? What do you learn about God? His Power? His Will? You might even write some of it down in a notebook. This is Biblical meditation.
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