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TL;DR:
This Psalm 1 devotional contrasts the righteous and the wicked and urges us to root our lives in God's Word rather than worldly influences. Those who delight in and obey God's truth become spiritually stable, fruitful, and blessed. The contrasting lives of two Italian brothers illustrate the importance of choosing a faithful, God-centered path.
1 Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
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.4 Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.
Psalm 1:1–6 is from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Week 49
Some time ago, I conducted the funeral of Renzo Lagomarsino. Although Renzo was not a member of our church in Florence, Italy, his brother Ado, who was a member, asked me to conduct a graveside service.
This brother, Ado, rode with me out to the Florence city cemetery. On the way, Ado mentioned his hope that the Lord would use this brief service as a clear testimony to a troubled family. When we both lapsed into silence, I started thinking about the contrasts between these two brothers.
“Blessed is the one.”
As a young man, Ado Lagomarsino was converted under the ministry of Rev. Alfredo Del Rosso, an Italian captivated by a vision.
At the time of his brother's death, Ado and his wife, Olga, were in their seventies. Their three children were grown and married. Two of them were active in the Florence congregation. The third was a pastor's wife in Naples.
“Not so the wicked!”
What a contrast Ado's life is to that of his brother, Renzo!
Renzo also heard the gospel as a young man, but he chose not to make Jesus Lord of his life.
Now, after having gone through three unhappy marriages, Renzo Lagomarsino had died a lonely death in a mental hospital. Of his five children, most are divorced or in their second marriages. Even as brothers and sisters, they don't get along well. In fact, two of them—who both live in Florence—did not even come to their father's interment.
I don't think there could be a more graphic confirmation of Psalm 1 than the contrasting lives of these two Italian brothers.
“Like a tree planted by streams of water.”
Because Ado Lagomarsino turned his life over to the Lord, he is—in the Psalm 1 metaphor—“planted by streams of water.”
This particular metaphor needs no explanation to those who live in dry climates. I remember discovering how to spot a stream or farm pond in western Oklahoma and Kansas. All you had to do was look for clumps of trees. Those trees flourish only where there is water.
Ado Lagomarsino's life was not an easy one. But because he cast his lot with the Lord, it was a full and fruitful one. By the end of his life, Ado had borne abundant fruit, while his brother had ended up clutching handfuls of chaff.
Robert Frost is famous for his poems about rural life in New England. One of my favorites of his is “The Road Not Taken.” It ends with these three lines:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
When Robert Frost wrote this poem, he wasn't trying to illustrate Psalm 1. But these last three lines almost sound like it, don't they?
We all face choices that will make a difference in our lives. Those differences often become more pronounced as the years pass.
What kind of harvest do you wish to reap at the end of your life? Do you want your life to resemble a tree heavy with ripe fruit, or will you be content to find yourself clutching handfuls of chaff?
I wrote this blog post when Barbara and I were serving as missionaries in Italy. It is one of a series of 52 brief devotionals written for The Standard, a weekly Faith Connections take-home curriculum piece for adult Sunday school classes published by the Church of the Nazarene.
Psalm 1 helps us understand the importance of righteousness, meditation on God's law, and the contrasting outcomes for the righteous and the wicked. Here are six insights we can draw from Psalm 1:
Memorable Quotes About Other Bible Verses
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