Fifty Two Weeks / Psalm 1

Walk Stand Sit

One of the more influential books in my early adult Christian life was from the teachings of the Chinese pastor Watchman Nee. It was a series of teachings from Ephesians and it was titled Sit Walk Stand. To “sit” is our position in Christ. To “walk” is our life in the world. To “stand” is our position toward the enemy.

I’m always reminded of Watchman Nee’s book whenever I read the first Psalm because the Psalms starts out with a warning about a similar sounding, but totally opposite, progression. Walk. Stand. Sit.

Don’t walk in step with the wicked. This may seem harmless enough. It isn’t exactly a sin, but it put you in a fellowship that can lead to much worse. Paul warns us in 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Bad company corrupts good character.” To walk in step with the wicked doesn’t necessarily mean that you are wicked, but it sets you up to…

Stand in the way sinners take. If you walk along with the wicked it should come as no surprise to find yourself at the place of sinners. By the way, the wicked don’t always (or even usually) lead homeless lives and wander about in a drug induced stupor. More often than not they wear expensive threads, drive really nice cars, and spout fine sounding ideas. These are metaphorical statements so basically it means that entertaining wicked ideas will lead to endorsing sinful ideas which leads to…

Sitting with the company of mockers. To “sit” in this instance is to become established, and quite comfortably so, with that group that doesn’t just entertain sin but actually ridicules anything righteous. 

I followed this progression in my late teens and early to mid twenties. Apart from God’s grace this progression is inevitable and it happens before you know it.

The Cure

The opposite of this progression is the solution to avoiding this path. The Word.

The Law of the Lord is an Old Testament synonym for what we would call the Bible, or God’s Word. Those who delight in the Bible and think often about it in their daily life avoid the downward progression outlined in the first verse.

Moreover, they become established like a fruitful tree planted by a water source. Such a tree needs only to stay where it is and continue to draw from the freely given source available to it in order to be continuously fruitful. In fact, whatever he does prospers. 

(OK, tough decision here. Do I want to mock everything righteous or do I want to prosper in everything I do? Hummmm?)

Bear in mind that the wicked don’t prosper in anything. Oh, they may appear to prosper in the short term but such looks can be deceiving. A puff of wind comes along and like chaff they are gone along with all of their pseudo prosperity.

Another big decision. We can sit with mockers or stand with the righteous in the judgment. 

There will be a judgment. This is something the wicked mockers tend to ignore. Perhaps they don’t want to think about perishing? The righteous don’t have to think about perishing because the Lord continually thinks about them and watches over their way. 

So, my question is, "Why do so many Christians not make time in their daily lives for the Word?"