Landscape of Hope: An Illustrated Journey Into the PsalmsSample

[IMAGE CONTENT] # Outfoxing God As the days and years pass in the life of each person, character is revealed. With each step through time, integrity and vice are exposed in the community. Here we stand, this song declares, a result of decisions made and ambitions followed. Nineteenth-century philosopher-poet Ralph Waldo Emerson captured it well: “The force of character is cumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work their health into this.” Every movement made is recorded through time, clearly seen by the eternal Onlooker. There’s no hiding or projecting of a canonized self! We are seen; we are known. The path of the righteous, states the psalmist, is in an eternal connection, a living bond. The way of the wicked, their desires and dreams, are cut off from this union, this life. The contrasts in this song pull us to the tree by the river (verse 3), refreshed, rooted, and fruitful. They invite us to make choices on this day, in this hour, to strengthen those roots.