Last night we began our new teaching series, “Finding our Voice in the Psalms.” The underlying intent of this series to find our voice as a people who are living on the edge of their lives, sensitive to the raw hurts, the primitive passions, and the naïve elations that are at the bottom of our life. I am asking that we depart from the closely managed world of public survival, to move into the open, frightening, healing world of the voice of the Holy One.

I feel that the agenda and intention of the Psalms is considerably at odds with the normal voice of most people – the normal voice of a stable, functioning, self-deceptive culture in which everything must be kept running smoothly. The voice of the Psalms is abrasive, revolutionary, and dangerous. They announce that life is not one of well-being and equilibrium, but a churning, disruptive experience of dislocation and relocation.

So as a way to introduce this series we turned to the introduction of the book of Psalms – Psalm 1. There are two important functions that Psalm 1 plays:

1. Psalm 1 defines the wicked and the righteous and their respective ways of life.
2. The righteous are those who are firmly planted in the Word of God. They are the ones who meditate on the word and because of that do not accompany the wicked and because of that they thrive.

With these two functions in mind, we concluded the evening with the following time of guided prayer and meditation. This time consisted of the reading of a verse, a thought, a question, and a way to pray.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers (Psalms 1:1).

There seems to be a progression in this verse—a descent into hell—from listening to the advice and ways of sin all the way to mocking what is true and good.

Examine your life: what you listen to, what you look at, whom you identify with?

Confess now the ways you walk with the wicked, stand with sinners, and sit and the seat of scoffers.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night (Psalms 1:2).

Sin is directional: It only looks around horizontally, but not up. The advice of the wicked, the society of sinners is all it knows.

Righteousness is directional as well: It looks up to God and meditates on his ways, his truth, his word. It has an eternal view of the world.

Again examine your life. Do you spend quality time in the Word of God? Is it your delight? Pray it will be.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers (Psalms 1:3).

Remember that we must be sustained for the long haul. Pursue the life of meditation and prayer the way tree roots seek water.

Your choice is either to flourish like a well-watered tree – to allow yourself to be a person of substance or to be shallow and hollow inside. Pray that God will help you choose well.

To pray is to meditate, to hear God and answer God. To hear well is to pray well. We would never speak to God unless God had first spoken to us. Your prayer life will never go further than your grasp of God’s word.

Right now ask God to speak his Word with its full and proper impact into your life.

The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish (Psalms 1:4-6).