“Legends Never Rest”

“Just Do It”

“No pain, no gain.”

When I go to the gym, these are the kinds of motivational slogans I see on the muscle shirts. I know they’re supposed to inspire, but they wear me out.

(If I had a slogan on my gym shirt, it would read, “Obviously not the instructor”).

But the point is, hard work is embedded in American culture - and our collective psyche. On the walls of my gym, it says, in huge letters, “Perspire to Greatness.” For many people, that’s their life motto.

So when we come to Psalm 1, we might not be surprised by how he describes a righteous person. He says that a godly person’s “delight is in the LORD’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night.”

Day and night. That’s 24/7 commitment to God. All-in.

What does this look like? For me, I remember when I was in full-time campus ministry and living in a low-resource community in Memphis. I often went out for a run while listening to a sermon. I didn’t want to lose a moment that could be dedicated to serving the Lord.

There’s nothing wrong with these behaviors - they’re commendable. But I want to speak to the “hustle attitude” that can lie beneath our religious fervor.

Think about Psalm 1 again. Who is the psalmist describing? I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not me. Actually, the psalmist is giving us a picture of Jesus.

And when I read the Gospels, I don’t think Jesus would have worn a “Work Hard and Hustle” t-shirt.

In his commentary on Psalm 1, Willem Vangemeren notes, “Revelation comes from God for the purpose of helping human beings live in harmony with God’s will, whereas religion is a human attempt to order one’s path and explain the surrounding world.”

After I pump iron at the gym, there’s a natural satisfaction. It’s the same gratification I get from knocking back a couple of hundred pages of academic theology. Yet because religion is a good thing, it’s easy to turn it into a way of avoiding God.

What’s easier? Delighting in God’s instruction - or accomplishing a religious goal?

This is one of the primary ways we misread the Bible. We come to God’s revelation already convinced that our way of experiencing life is correct. And so we diminish and twist God’s word to bring it into our framing.

I once spent a summer in Tajikistan. The Tajiks wanted me to learn some basic Tajik phrases so that I could respectfully interact with others in the shops and so on. But I could only hear all the phonics of their beautiful language in an English register. No matter how much I attempted to recite the Tajik words, they often came out laughably wrong.

One day they said I was ready to do the grocery shopping. Feeling unprepared, I bravely stepped up to the counter and asked the shopkeeper if I could please buy six eggs. Everyone died laughing. I think some of the Tajik guys literally started rolling on the floor. If not, it felt like it. When my friend recovered his breath, he told me, “Carson, you just asked if you could buy six idiots.”

I don’t know how I got it so wrong (maybe it was a practical joke?).

I learned that since I could only hear Tajik as if it was English, I kept getting the language wrong.

It’s the same challenge with the Bible. We often hear it according to our sinful orientation to life, so we don’t understand what God’s Spirit is trying to do with God’s word in our lives. Or perhaps it wasn’t us but a spiritual authority who told us that God wanted us to work tirelessly to build up his church (and paycheck).

Meditating on God’s word night and day is not about an intensified religious commitment. Instead, it’s actually about resting in our friendship with God.

Consider the story Jesus told about the two prodigals. The older son says, “Look, I have been slaving many years for you, and I have never disobeyed your orders…”

But that’s not the Father’s heart. The Father tells him, “Son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.”

If we look at this situation from the neighbor’s house, it appears that the older son is “at home.” But if we look at the situation from within the son’s heart, he is absent.

I speak from experience: you can spend all day reading the Bible and still have no interaction with God. The hustle culture of the gym - or the lifestyle of the older prodigal son - is what’s exhausting.

Alternatively, as God makes his home in our hearts, we can experience what Jesus promised to his disciples: “Behold, I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

Do you work hard at a good friendship? Or is it a restful experience?

Because God is the ultimate Friend.

And as Psalm 1 tells us, the righteous person meditates on God’s instruction “day and night.”

So what does this look like?

This kind of meditation comes from our heart of hearts, as we are filled with God’s Spirit and enjoy our friendship with God. Why wouldn’t we want to experience God’s friendship all night and day?

May God bless you.

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Photo by George Pagan III on Unsplash