Cycles of Life - A Reflection on Psalm 1
Spontaneous Ponderings
I’ve been reading through the Psalms recently in my personal daily Bible reading. I’ve also been working on a new logo and a new Bible reading course (more to come on that soon!). Through all of these things, I keep coming back to Psalm 1:1-3:
1 Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.
Recently, the phrase “in season” in verse 3 really jumped out at me. Sometimes, we go through life and we get really frustrated that it seems like we are not making progress in areas of life where we are trying really hard. Maybe you are trying to teach your kids to be kind to each other. Maybe you are trying to build relationships at work. Maybe you are venturing out into a new business. Maybe you are trying to lose weight or start an exercise routine. And it just seems like you are stuck. You aren’t making any progress. We can get so discouraged in those times.
But Psalm 1 reminds us that similar to a tree, we all have seasons of life. Maybe you just aren’t in a season right now where you are seeing the fruits of your efforts. But that doesn’t mean you are failing or that you should quit trying. A tree has to go through all the stages of life (see life cycle image). And there’s one stage that isn’t even in this life cycle—the stage of fall where the tree loses its leaves. Then in the spring, the cycle starts all over again.
Did you notice that the time the fruit is on the tree is only one small part of the life cycle? And the time that the fruit can actually be harvested is an even smaller portion of that.
If you aren’t seeing the fruit in your life, maybe you’re just in a different season. Maybe you are in the growing phase, or maybe you have just leaves, or flowers, or unripe fruit. You might even be in a stage where it feels like you are losing all of your leaves. That doesn’t mean you are doing something wrong or that you are dying. It’s just a stage of life. And just like the tree needs all seasons and all stages to be healthy and grow, so do humans. No matter our circumstances, we can find something of value in all stages of life. The important thing is that no matter what season or stage you are in, that you stay planted by that stream, soaking up God’s word each day. When it’s your season, God will produce a harvest of fruit in your life.
Galatians 6:9: Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
There is a flip side to this too. Reading further in Psalm 1:4-6:
4 Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.
Just like a tree starts to wither and die when it is infected with a disease or it is being strangled by a sucker plant, our spiritual lives die when we let sin creep in and take over our lives. When we become aware of sin in our lives, we need to work on getting rid of that sin, that infection. Maybe we need to cut some things out of our lives that lead us into sin. Maybe we need a new mindset. More than anything, we need to spend more time in God’s word to help fight that infection of sin.
Which side do you want to be on? Do you want to be rooted by the stream of life, God’s word, that keeps you growing and healthy, bearing fruit in the right season? Or do you want to wither and dry up, away from God’s word?
I want to be healthy and strong, rooted in God’s word.
And that leads me to share a sneak peak of my new logo, just for my paid subscribers! I hope you love it as much as I do! (I’ll share the story about the logo when I officially launch my new course.)
One more thought on trees and fruit. Although there are some parts of life that are seasonal, and you may see fruit only occasionally or in different seasons, there are parts of the Christian’s spiritual life that should bear fruit at all times. We call these the fruit of the Spirit:
Galations 5:22-23: 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
But even the most dedicated Christian doesn’t do all of these perfectly all the time. Just as with everything else, though, if we stay planted in God’s word—if we are “Grounded in the Bible,” so to speak—we will find that we bear fruit in these areas more often than not.