For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction. – Psalm 1:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (July 7, 2019): Psalm 1

The Bible gives us two slightly different creation stories. The first involves six days and the creation of everything, including us. The second creation story consists of the story of Adam in the Garden and the creation of Eve from the rib of man. Both stories were likely written to establish the principals of the creation of all that we know. In both stories, it is God who is in charge and who does the creating. But it is in the second creation story that the serpent gives Adam and Eve a chance to surpass God, although not that even the serpent would be bold enough to suggest that that was what was about to happen. The words of the serpent to Eve are, “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). There was likely absolutely nothing different about the outlawed tree other than that God had forbidden it. God had given Adam and Even the freedom to choose good or evil, but that freedom was useless unless there was an evil that could be selected. The presence of this tree in the Garden of Eden offered Adam and Eve with an evil choice.

But the main point of the story is that when Adam and Eve ate the fruit from that one tree, they experienced what it was like to choose wrongly. They knew evil because they experienced it; they had committed wrong. And in this, they surpassed God. God recognizes evil, maybe to an extent he understands evil, but he had never experienced evil on such a personal level as Adam and Eve did when they took and ate the fruit from the forbidden tree. Unlike God, we know what it is like to experience the pleasure of doing something wrong. We know because we have experienced the act of choosing death over life, but I am not convinced that knowing the experience of evil is something that God can fully comprehend. In this aspect of life, we are the experts.

The NIV reads at the close of Psalm 1, “for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,” but maybe a better translation is that “the Lord knows the way of the righteous.” He understands the way of the righteous because it is the way that he walks. I am not convinced that the way of the wicked isn’t a bit of a mystery to him. Why would anyone desire to walk down a path that leads to destruction, even if that path seemed to earn the one on the journey temporary gains? From the point of God, that choice must seem absurd.

But the encouragement for the one who attempts to walk the path of the righteous is so much more than just knowing that God watches over us. God not only watches over us, but he walks with us because this is his path. And because it is his path, it leads not to destruction, but to life.    

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 49