Planted by the Water

Planted by the Water

In the arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa, farmers have long known that the difference between a flourishing tree and a struggling one is often simply proximity to water. Trees planted near riverbeds, even in otherwise dry soil, maintain their greenness through drought seasons that kill the unrooted vegetation around them. A forest ecologist named Ruth spent years studying this phenomenon and wrote: 'The roots draw constantly from a source the surface eye cannot see. The tree doesn't look different from a distance in dry seasons — but the roots tell the story.' She said: 'Psalm 1 is the best tree biology I've ever read.'

Psalm 1 opens the entire Psalter with a distinction between two ways of living — the way that flourishes and the way that perishes. The flourishing life is compared to a tree with a specific characteristic: not where it stands on the surface, but what it is connected to beneath. 'Planted by streams of water' — the roots reach water that doesn't dry up. The visible result: fruit in season, leaves that don't wither. The underlying condition: constant, invisible connection to a source. This is the picture of the person who 'meditates on his law day and night' — whose interior life is constantly refreshed by God's word. Fruitfulness is not the result of effort applied to the visible parts of your life. It is the overflow of an invisible root system connected to the living God.