“Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers” (Psalm 1:1).
Is there anything really new under the sun? That human nature doesn’t really change much is demonstrated quite readily by comparing today’s newspaper with the pages of the Old Testament. The emotions that motivate people today are the same as those that made people love and hate, fear and trust centuries ago. What gets people into trouble today? Greed, sex, selfishness, the lust for power, and pride—the same things that got them into trouble long before the age of jet travel and computers.
I couldn’t help thinking of that as I responded to a variety of people who had written, grasping for just a thread of help. Many told of troubled marriages, jobs that were shaky, families coming apart. Several poured out their hearts, writing page after page of heart-breaking stories.
It’s always easy to critique someone else’s failure—to see the mote in the other person’s eye. And, at times, what seems so obscure to us seems rather obvious to someone who looks at it objectively. Our judgment becomes clouded by our emotions. We see what we want to see. We close our minds to what is distasteful, what we don’t want to believe or accept. What woman ever wants to believe that her husband has been unfaithful? What dad wants to accept the fact it was his son who instigated a plot to cheat on exams?
More than a few times we ask ourselves, “How did I get here? Where did I miss the right road? Where do I go from here?” Hindsight, of course, is always 20/20. It’s foresight that counts, but can you profit by knowing where you started to go wrong?
David, the man who wrote many of the Psalms, believed that you could. Writing from personal experience, David said, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word” (Psalm 119:67).
There are usually many ways you can go wrong, but often only one way to go really right. Our mistakes and failures are usually compounded, but most of the time they stem from a basic mistake, a situation or a relationship that we knew wasn’t good. You realized you were making a bad decision, but you talked yourself into handling it, saying, “I can handle this one time!” Or you thought, “Well, once really doesn’t matter!” But it did matter. It set a precedent—it became a habit. It pointed you in a direction you really didn’t want to go.
A Chinese pastor by the name of Watchman Nee, wrote a book dealing with this issue. The title: Sit Walk Stand. It was taken from three phrases found in Psalm 1, where the writer said, “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of the mockers or scornful.”
Have you ever noticed that progression? First, you stop doing what you know you ought to be doing and you flirt with wrongdoing. It’s exciting. Forbidden fruit always seems to look better. Walking suggests a flirtation with what you know is wrong, not really involved, just taking a good look at it.
Then you stand—the temptation becomes more attractive. Finally, you succumb to what you know is wrong. You sit down and you are involved or hooked.
The Psalmist offered a better way. He says blessed is the person whose “delight is in the law of the LORD” (Psalm 1:2). That person is like a tree planted by streams of water.
A closing thought. It’s never too late to turn back, to realize you missed the right road. A decision wise men still make is to go back and take the right road.
Resource reading: Psalm 1.
