Those who ... delight is in the law of the Lord
... are like trees planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.
Psalm 1:1-3
What’s brown ... with green dots ... and streaks of yellow?
No, that’s not the beginning of a bad joke!
That’s what much of northern New Mexico looks like. The valleys where I lived for 10 years are brown with occasional evergreen dots of juniper and piñon. But in the fall, the cottonwoods turn a brilliant yellow.
And it isn’t just an occasional cottonwood. It’s long, glorious ribbons of yellow. These leaf bearing trees can grow only one place in the desert. They line the stream beds, announcing the only abundance of water in the otherwise parched terrain.
Much of Israel looks like much of northern New Mexico. And as this Psalm suggests, about the only place where trees can “yield their fruit in its season” and where their “leaves do not wither” is indeed “by streams of water.”
With this image, the very first Psalm tells us something very important about God:
He is water.
He is life!
Throughout the Scriptures, water symbolizes God’s cleansing, forgiveness, and healing. But it’s more than that …
· Not only did God create life (Genesis 1) ...
· Not only did God knit us together in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139) …
· Not only does He breathe life into all creation (Genesis 2) ...
· But God, like water, is what is needed to truly sustains us daily.
He gives us hope. He is the author of love. He is the wellspring of true joy. God, indeed, is life! The true rich and abundant kind of life that we all ultimately crave.
And yet ... it is still even more than that …
In the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John, when Jesus talks about “living water,” he says that it “14 will become in [us] a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” God is life … today and eternally! And when you learn to say, “the Lord God is my strength and my might,” then “with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” Isaiah 12:2-3
In Christ’s Love,
a guy who’s lived in deserts
and whose soul has been
occasionally parched
and can’t wait to see, therefore,
“the river of the water of life ...
flowing from the throne of God”
Revelation 22:1
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