Psalm 1 sets the course for humanity's relationship with God.
There is freedom and love to those whose delight is in the law of the Lord and meditate on it day and night. 🙏
Back in France tonight, at Bourbonne-les-Bains in the Haute-Marne — a town whose warm springs have drawn people since Roman times. A place built around water rising from below.
And Le has turned to the very first psalm — the doorway into the whole book. Psalm 91, Psalm 116, Psalm 127… and now the gate they all pass through.
Psalm 1 sets out two roads and asks only one question: where are your roots?
Le saw it at once: Psalm 1 sets the course. Every psalm after it walks one of these two roads.
And she named what is found on the right road — freedom and love. The world hears "law" and thinks of chains. The psalmists heard it and sang.
Freedom: And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts (Psalm 119:45). James calls it the perfect law of liberty (James 1:25).
Love: O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day (Psalm 119:97). Love and meditation in one breath — exactly as Le wrote.
The law of the LORD is not a fence around us. It is the river beside the tree.
"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night."
Psalm 1:1-2 · KJV"Blessed." The Hebrew is ashrei — a plural. Literally: Oh, the happinesses of the one… The Psalter opens not with a command, but with joy.
Walk… stand… sit. Notice the slowing down. First you walk past, listening to the counsel. Then you stop and stand in their way. Then you sit down and stay. Drift happens one posture at a time.
"But his delight." The cure is not a list of prohibitions — it is a greater love. The heart that delights in the Word has no appetite left for the scornful seat.
"Meditate" — hagah — to murmur, to say softly under the breath. Isaiah uses the same word for a lion growling over its prey (Isaiah 31:4). Meditation is not emptying the mind. It is holding a verse and turning it over and over, not letting it go. Exactly what Le does each day with her reading.
"And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."
Psalm 1:3 · KJV"Planted." The word, shatul, means transplanted — set there on purpose by a gardener. The tree did not find the river by its own wisdom. Someone carried it there.
"The rivers of water" — palgei mayim — channels, streams divided off to water an orchard. The water comes to the tree. The tree's work is only to stay rooted.
"His fruit in his season." Not every season. His season. A tree is not ashamed in winter that it bears no fruit. Some seasons are for roots, not fruit.
"His leaf also shall not wither." Jeremiah 17:7-8 paints the same tree: Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD… he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh… neither shall cease from yielding fruit. Its leaf stays green because its roots go deep.
"The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish."
Psalm 1:4-6 · KJVTree and chaff. One has roots and weight; the other has neither. The tree stays in one place and is never moved. The chaff goes wherever the wind sends it.
And here is a mystery for travellers: a life can move every few days and still be the tree, not the chaff. Rootedness is not an address. It is a delight, and a river.
"The LORD knoweth the way of the righteous." The word is yada — to know intimately, personally. Not just "He is aware of it." He knows the road the way a friend knows it — every turn, every stop. Psalm 91 last week: to keep thee in all thy ways. Psalm 1 tonight: He knows them all. 🙏
"There is freedom and love to those whose delight is in the law of the Lord and meditate on it day and night."
Le · Bourbonne-les-Bains · October 22, 2026 · Rooted by the river, fruit in its season — and every road known to HimWalk, Stand, Sit
Drift happens one posture at a time. The cure is a greater delight.
Hagah — Meditate
To murmur a verse, turn it over, and not let it go. Day and night.
Planted by the Water
Transplanted on purpose. Fruit in its season; some seasons are for roots.
He Knows the Way
Yada — known intimately. Rootedness is not an address; it is a river.