It’s the beginning of April. Spring has sprung, or at least is trying to do so. Three months of the New Year are already gone. Anyone remember what good intentions or resolutions they had at the beginning of the year? Anyone still working on them? I think I know the answer to that one.
It is so easy to slide back into old patterns, the behaviors we may not like but which seem to cling to us. It is so much easier to go back than to push forward. Psalm 1 paints a picture of a person who so readily slides into evil habits and attitudes. “Blessed is the [man or woman] who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.” [vs1 NIV]
It begins with a walk with the wicked (ungodly). We draw up alongside and we listen to them and their arguments and invitations. “Come along with me,” they say, “what can it hurt?”
Pretty soon we find that we are standing around with sinners (one accounted guilty). We aren’t just listening anymore to their counsel, now we’re hanging with them. But the slide doesn’t stop there.
Before long, we are seated comfortably with mockers (scornful). Just whom are they mocking? They are mocking the very God who loves them and died to save them. In the end we find ourselves sitting with them and joining in their contempt and disdain.
What a sad state for anyone to find themselves in.
