Choices for life

I had a good ride on my bike yesterday.  The birds sounded happy and the wayside flowers are coming along nicely.  I even had time to enjoy the scent of bluebells before it was masked by exhaust fumes as a couple of motorbikes roared by!

After the dry weather we’ve been having there was little water in the river or in the becks.  Even the ditches were mostly dry.  Yet many of them were overflowing with an exuberance of golden kingcups, which brought to mind the ‘blessed man’ of Jeremiah 17: Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord.  For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but her leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.   

And how does this come about?  It all depends, I think, on what motivates us, what we find pleasure in, what preoccupies us.  But the psalmist puts it better:

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful;

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.

He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.

The ungodly are not so, but are as the chaff which the wind drives away.

Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgement, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

                                                                                                        - Psalm 1