Psalm 1:3-4

3     He is like a tree

planted by streams of water

that yields its fruit in its season,

and its leaf does not wither.

In all that he does, he prospers.

4     The wicked are not so,

but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Abba,

What a sad fate it is to end up as the wicked; tossed to the wind and driven away like the useless and meaningless discarded waste of the harvest. 

What a sad state and narrative on the life of the one whose life is spent living in opposition to you.

The sharpness of the distinction could not be any more clear.

The righteous man “yields its fruit in its season”

The righteous man “does not wither”

The righteous man finds prosperity “in all that he does”

The wicked “are like chaff that the wind drives away.”

What would it be like to live your whole life, thinking you were driving toward purpose, value, and achievement, just to find out at the end that it is nothing more than chaff that the wind carelessly and mercilessly drives away?

How many people in this world are looking to this life, proud of their accomplishments, reveling in their wealth and comforts, basking in the glow of man’s praise and glory, who will discover at the end that their entire life and work has been nothing more than chaff.  How many will discover that the things which they pursued were not those things of true worth and value?

What a dreadful and abysmal truth to face; to see your entire life count as nothing, having missed the mark and aimed for wrong thing.

Abba, sin has truly messed it all up.  Instead of tending the vine, the tree to ensure that it produces true fruit, sin shifts the focus to the casing, the peripheral, the completely meaningless portion of the plant.  The very thing that they work hard obtain, to cherish and protect, is the very part that is driven away by the wind as the useless casing of the true harvest.

The fruit is all but forgotten.  That which is of real value is neglected.

Oh the deceptiveness and deceit of sin; causing us to value the waste over the fruit. 

Oh the guile of sin that misplaces the true value of a thing and results in all of man’s pursuits to end up as waste, blown to nothingness.

How much this ought compel our hearts to warn the world of their plight and to lovingly speak truth into their lives that they might be warned away from their wicked and empty deeds and draw near to You, El Shaddai; Almighty God!

Abba, the emptiness of this life’s pursuits;

The void of a life without you;

The end of those who chose wickedness over life;

This reality ought to compel us to be prepared with words of truth and life to those lost in the darkness.

Fill our hearts with love, compassion, concern, even fear for those who have not chosen to embrace you and find life. 

May the word of life and the presence of You, Spirit, shine forth from us with such love and power that the wicked (as we once were) are drawn to you in repentance, faith, and life! 

May they join the harvest and avoid the sad and final state of that chaff that becomes no more.