day no. 14,261: under the heat of the Son

Psalm 1

The blessed man is first defined by what he doesn't do. He doesn't orient his life around worldly advice, he doesn't anchor his aspirations around his sinful inclinations, and he doesn't find rest in his ability to poke holes in whatever he is being told to do.

Rather, he is defined by his delight in the Law of the Lord. He orients his days, anchors his heart and finds security in something outside himself, something permanent, unshakable, indomitable: the Law of the living Lord and he dedicates his mind to mulling it over day and night and all the time in between. He has developed the habit of seeing and interpreting the world through the lens of the Creator's wisdom.

Now that we know what he does, the Psalmist transitions to explaining what he is like. When a man lives this way, it looks like something. In this case, a faithful, sturdy tree rooted near streams of living water that allow it to thrive and produce fruit that serves as a blessing to others. It is not shriveling up, it is maturing in sturdiness.

Just to be clear, the Psalmist wants to clarify that the man who does all of things that the man of God does not do (see vs. 1) looks like something.  In this case, it looks like chaff that the wind drives away. It has not root and it produces no fruit. It is tossed to and fro by the winds of change without any landmarks to secure its place.

In the end, the rootless will die under the heat of the Son while the faithful will survive and use His rays to produce fruit for His glory, the good of everyone else and the glorification of the tree.