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Where else can we start but the beginning? This will be an ongoing series where we examine the Psalms greatest hits. This is not a “deep-dive” exegetical series to titillate the intellect. If the Psalms are not experienced deep within the soul, then the words are lost on us. My purpose in this series is to cut through the exoskeleton and veneer, an allow the bottomless well of love captured in these words to burst out and take us where they may.

Psalm 1

“Blessed is the man (woman)
    who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
    nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his (her) delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law he (she) meditates day and night.”

The whole point of being “blessed” is that here is a substantive difference, a qualitative and quantitative value to living in the Flow of God, but if our motivation is our personal advantage then we’ve missed the entire point. How do we know if our motives are pure? Simple. What brings you delight? What do you cherish? What do you pursue when no one is watching? How would you live with unlimited resources available to you? How would you spend your very last day or hour?

Purifying our motives involves a process of gradual slowing. The false life is always running to or from something. It’s always “doing,” rather than “being.” However, as we begin to listen to our existential angst the running gives way to walking, the walking yields to sitting, and the sitting allows the soliloquy of the soul to emerge. This has always been the path, it’s mapped out on every soul that has ever existed. This is why we sit by streams, lakes and oceans.

It’s easier to distract ourselves with scoffers and doubters. We love our team’s pundits and talk radio. It’s convenient to follow the herd into the anesthesia of a busy life. “Everyone is doing it.” Before long we whiz down the congested superhighway led all the way to ruin, not by the deep Voice within, but electrified voices without.

“He (she) 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 (she) does, he (she) prospers.
The wicked are not so,
    but are like chaff that the wind drives away.”

Is it any wonder why there is so much pain and suffering in the world? With so many living disconnected from Source, we just blow around from one thing to the next all the while asking if any of it matters. “What is the point of it all?”

The disintegrated life cannot answer this question, there can be no meaning to what we’ve concluded is a random collision of events. Finding ones motives is the soul work which is removed far from the person who can’t even find themselves. Dimmed sight potentiates into blindness which dries us up and detaches us further.

Somehow we know its not this way for everyone. The circumstances of life that would destroy us only seem to empower others. Hurricane force winds neither disrupt nor desiccate those connected to Source. We know this intuitively, that integration at the depth of our being, a relational experience with Maker, allows a transfer of strength, wisdom, and sight that makes all the difference.

“Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
    nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
    but the way of the wicked will perish.”

Suddenly our motivations are back on the examination table. Will we slow enough to sit and be loved? Will we sit long enough for the light of truth to shine upon us revealing every insecurity and scar that we’ve adopted as ourself? Will we forfeit our fake ID for the carrying card of the Beloved? Or will we flee such illumination and scurry like a cockroach into the shadow beneath the fridge?

One motive feels like dying but leads to life. Another motive feels like survival but is actually death. The Law of Love has ensured that no soul will go through life without experiencing this truth. Each coming second is our next chance at change. Each tick of the clock is the great throne room of judgement.

The law of Love consumes us one way or another. We grow connected to Love through being and its all we think about, or we hide from Love in our doing and give thought to anything else. The true soul is found when we lose ourselves in love. The bend or twist of the false self remains lost like a shadow trying to convince others it is real.