Walk This Way | Psalm 1
Have you ever heard of doom scrolling? It is the act of continuously scrolling on your phone on social media or news apps. It is watching reel after reel, or story after story, often of news that is sad, disheartening or depressing. For a lot of people, it is done late at night or when they are bored. It feels a void, but it can create a cycle of anger, fear, anxiety and distraction. It is addictive and destructive. Media companies profit for our addiction. If we are not careful, our soul begins to be shaped by the darkness we consume. C.S Lewis said, “Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowing turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature.” In other words, you BECOME what you BEHOLD. What we feed in our lives grows and what we starve dies. Neuroscientists talk about “neuroplasticity” which is the brain ability to change and adapt throughout a person’s life in response to experiences, learning and trauma. “When neurons fire together, they wire together.” Proverbs 23:7: As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. We need our lives to be shaped by God and His Word, not the world and its doom.
The book of Psalms is both a song and a prayer book of the Bible. The book of Psalms is made up of 5 books of Psalms with a total of 150 psalms. When you think of the songs, it is more of a playlist than a greatest hits. There are different styles and genres: happy, sad, depressed, joyful, angry, anxious, and exciting. Each Psalm is written within a context, stirring different emotions during different seasons of life. But in every season, good or bad, we are to praise the Lord. There are different authors: David (wrote the majority), Korah, Moses, Solomon, Jedidiah, and Heman. The book has an intro which is Psalm 1 and 2 and an outro Psalm 149-150. Psalm 1 is the key to the rest of the Psalms. Psalm 1 sets up a contrast of two ways to live your life, with two different outcomes: the way of blessedness or brokenness.