Grace and peace to you all this week:

Have you ever found yourself binging a television show or watching a long movie that you never intended to watch in the first place? It begins innocently enough. You are just flipping channels and you stop because something catches your attention. Maybe its that actor who you can’t remember the name, or maybe its a compelling action scene. Maybe its just some cheesy lines that you can’t believe anyone would ever say in real life. Next thing you know, you’ve watched three or four scenes and then, without any time passing at all, you realize you’ve been sitting on the couch for three hours.

I feel like a similar dynamic is happening in the first couple of verses of Psalm 1. It pictures someone who has found themself in the wrong place. First they walk alongside the wicked. They are following the wrong people, but at least they are still moving.  But then they stand in the path of sinners. They’ve gotten a little comfortable and they have stopped moving. Finally they sit in the company of cynics. They’ve comfortable and planted now in the wrong place.

Sin is like that. It might not seem like it at first, but there’s always a catch. What might not seem like a trap often turns out to pin us down. The Book of Proverbs often describes greed and wickedness as traps that we set for ourselves. Not even animals act this foolishly. “If a bird sees a trap being set, it knows to stay away. But the wicked set an ambush for themselves, as if trying to get themselves killed. Such is the fate of all who are greedy for stolen wealth; it robs them of life.” We set the trap and then we fall into our own snares, unable to free ourselves without the grace and wisdom of God.

In Psalm 1, the antidote to getting stuck is to delight in the law of the LORD. Regular meditation on the Word of God keeps us moving on the right path.