The psalmists’ expressions can represent our own experiences. In Psalm 1, the happy meditators of God’s law are delighted as they prosper. They are trees planted beside a stream, enduring and yielding fruit. In contrast, the wicked are unable to stand and are easily blown aside by the wind.

We want to identify with the righteous, the strong trees yielding fresh spiritual fruit of love, joy, peace, and patience. We want to claim the identity of one who has self-control, one who is kind, good, and gentle with other people. But in many of our encounters, we feel more like the chaff, blown in all directions, unable to stand. We sin and scoff. In this passage we find the dichotomy of being human. We are struggling and evolving but also beautiful. We are flying through the air like chaff in the wind, but we are also rooted in Christ, our nourishing source of living water. When we seek paths of fulfillment outside of God, we lose our sense of being spiritually grounded; we suffer in the chaos and uncertainty of the windblown chaff. Instead of labeling ourselves as wicked and retreating into guilt that distances us from God’s grace-filled love, we can embrace the image of the tree next to the stream and return to the source of our nourishment. When we return to God, our spiritual thirst is satisfied.

In this passage, we find an opportunity to embrace the truth: our lives do not reflect a claim to live in one of these two realities but a challenge to embrace the tension of living a life that vacillates between chaff and tree. When we feel blown in all directions, we can look for the next season of fruit-bearing prosperity. When we make our least wise choices and sit with the chaffy parts of ourselves, we can once again return to God’s ways of meditative sustenance and stand in the way of the righteous.