Today I started a commitment in my morning silence and devotion time to work my way through the Psalms, one each morning from the beginning to the end. My commitment during that time is to use an approach to reading more akin to Lectio Divina rather than my usual way of reading scripture. So it’s more like a contemplative form of praying the scriptures. It will take discipline.

This morning I was contemplating Psalm 1. Many will know it well. It talks about how those who take delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on it day and night will be blessed. It describes them with the metaphor of a tree planted by streams of water and producing much fruit in season.

When the Psalmist wrote that, the reference to the ‘law’ would have been a reference to the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). For anyone after Jesus, his words should come to mind. Asked to sum up the law he made it very simple – to love God with everything you’ve got (my paraphrase) and to love others as yourself.

Jesus himself can also be viewed as the fulfilment and embodiment of the law that the Psalmist was referring to.

So the call of the Psalmist that should resonate with the follower of Christ is to take delight in and meditate on the person of Jesus and to love God and others with everything we have. These are cultivated in our inner life through the meditation asked for, contemplation and that time when it’s just us and God. From that inner space it should then flow into our visible lives with love for God and others becoming action.

Love isn’t just a sentiment, it’s a physical activity that is to be expressed in all circumstances, not just the comfortable. In fact, it finds its best and most potent expressions amongst the marginalised and the oppressed, amidst extreme poverty, conflict and injustice and it’s real force is known when expressed towards those we consider to be our enemies.

May we be those who delight and meditate on his law day and night and may we embody that in the lives we live towards others.

Read more of my reflections on the Psalms.

Here’s why I’m walking this journey through the Psalms.