Now look with me at Psalm 1, verse 3, we encounter the results of growth toward the full blessing of God. When our choose to walk into the way of God’s blessing, when we take steps with our environment for growth – our relationships and choices, and when we take in the essential food for growth – the Scripture, something beautiful happens. This is verse 3:
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.
True blessing is a gift from God into our lives. True growth toward that blessing happens by the grace of God in our lives. We simply receive God’s gift and yield to God’s grace in our lives. As this happens, the psalmist points out three things that occur as part of the blessing of God on our lives.
Fruitful
First, we will become fruitful. That is, the result of our daily lives – both individually and together – will bring a crop of delicious fruit from our lives. Have you ever tried to do a project but felt like a lack of fruitfulness is there? There is nothing more frustrating. In our own lives, we cannot control blessing but we can yield to God’s to blessing. We cannot make ourselves grow, but we can surrender to the Holy Spirit’s work of bringing growth. Cultivating the right environment and then taking in the essential food for growth opens the doorways for fruitfulness. What sort of fruitfulness? From the New Testament perspective we can certainly turn to that wonderful passage in Paul’s letter to the Galatian church where he says: “the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). Our lives become truly life-giving to others. Our words restore and build up. Our actions reflect the astounding love and joy of God to the world.
Enduring
Along with fruitfulness, true growth results in endurance. Psalm 1:3 says: “whose leaf does not wither.” The seasons of life in this world can certainly cause us to wither. Like the droughts of certain summers, the trials, tribulations, and difficulties of this world threaten to bend us and break us down. But the person who is truly ‘blessed’ bears up, like Jesus, in the face of difficulty. Why? Because there is a solid, trustworthy grace of God that enters into us to provide strength for what we face. This is reflected in what we read from the prophet Habakkuk 3:17-18:
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
Prospering
Thirdly, we read here that the results of growth are prosperity: “whatever they do prospers.” We are not talking about something as simple and passing as monetary or material blessing here. Psalm 1 is not the seedbed for the prosperity gospel. Rather, we are talking about God giving us what we most deeply need: a life truly blessed by the joy of God’s presence and lived in an enduring and prosperous world. We all clearly know that material abundance does not in and of itself bring us prosperity in life. Otherwise, wealthy athletes and pop culture stars would not ruin their lives in meaningless ways. True prosperity comes through a life well-lived before God; a blessed life. A life that others look at and say, “I wish I was a person like that.” Of course, we know that such things are only derived from the grace of God.
We are made to grow. When we take steps to grow we begin to experience the fullness of God’s blessing: fruitfulness, endurance, and prosperity.
In what ways are do you want to grow toward fruitfulness, endurance, and prosperity with God’s blessing in your life?
What do you think it might look like to step forward toward the fullness of God’s blessing in this season of your life?
This is the fourth in a series of posts on Psalm 1. You can read the other posts here:
Renovate 