Trees

Psalm 1:2-4

2 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.

Psalm 37:35-36

35 I have seen a wicked and ruthless man

Flourishing like a luxuriant native tree,

36 but he soon passed away and was no more;

Though I looked for him, he could not be found.

            So much of my life and study recently have been focused on the righteous and the wicked. We are idealizing the righteous life as being full of blessings, growth, ease, joy, and stability but this doesn’t match up to real life. We are looking at the imagery of the Bible and only see what we want, what is beautiful. We focus on areas such as Psalm 1 but when do take in the imagery of Psalm 37? We focus on the blessings that should be ours but when do we take in the whole entity of reality? That is what I have been so focused on this semester… Why is the wicked man’s prosperity equal to or surpassing of the righteous man’s? I think part of our answer comes from the imagery of “trees” with in Psalm.

            Psalm 1 feeds our philosophy of good winning out over the bad. The righteous man is one who sees blessings. That tree has the blessings of the source of life, streams of water, and of beneficial result, bearing fruit. But does this imagery resemble real life? I think it can when we think about the seasons of a tree. Within a cycle of seasons a tree undergoes new growth and life, then flourishes and bears fruit, after which can come a time of drought, which leads to a time of being dormant. If this is a righteous tree then it will survive. Even though we face times of spiritual drought we will make it to the next season. Even when we are flourishing under God’s blessings we will not stay that way forever. In order to have new growth and bear more fruit we must have times of being dormant. Being stagnant in our growth can lead us back to the giver of life so that we can flourish once more.

            Psalm 37 reminds us that the righteous aren’t the only ones who will flourish. This is what we see amongst the reality of the world. Everywhere we look we see evil, lost people prosper and have everything that we think we want. Psalms 37 reminds us that we aren’t the only trees. Others will grow up around us but they will not last. The wicked will have their time because that’s all they get. Time, the time the wicked have here on earth, is a mere fragment of eternity. The wicked will have their time to flourish because they will be blown away. They are the trees that will not last.  The righteous trees will survive and thrive throughout eternity; our blessings are not bound with in time. 

So do not anger because the wicked trees flourish for the moment, for moments in time is all they have.