Hello everyone! The Up Devotional is back after a week’s vacation. I slept in, played multiple games of Uno, read my Bible, and set up a swing in the backyard.
But now the devotional is back to your email inboxes, social media feeds, radios, and podcasting apps.
A clarifying psalm for the start of a new year is Psalm 1. It’s often called the gateway to the psalms.
It contrasts the path of righteousness with the path of wickedness. The former is what you want to walk; the latter is what you want to avoid.
The person who seeks to be right with God and their neighbour is the one who delights in God’s law and who meditates on it day and night (verse 1).
As a result, 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” (verse 3).
This is what it is to be a tree. It is to be so well-watered by God and his word that its roots run deep and wide, rendering it stable in a storm; its branches are expansive and its foliage is healthy; it is a life-giving blessing and even provides a home to others.
As you start your new year, are you ready to be a tree? Are you delighting in God’s word? Are you being watered with it? Are you maximizing your exposure? Are you growing deep roots? Are you maturing in a way which will bless the people around you?
Verse 6 says: “For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.”
Choose for the former, not the latter.
Welcome to a new year.
Be a tree.
Notes:
–Special thanks to my daughter, Anna, who helped with today’s recording of the podcast version.
–Bible quotes are from the NIV.
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