He Shall be Like a Tree Planted by the Rivers

“So what is it about that passage that is making you all teary eyed?” Hugh wanted to know. We were doing our evening devotions as we always did, just opening the Bible anywhere and reading. (our more systematic reading happens in the mornings) The Bible opened to Psalm 1, a scripture I know by heart. I started getting choked up almost immediately, knowing what I was about to read, but Hugh didn’t get it.

There had been plenty of reason to shed tears in the last few days. Hugh had just lost his youngest son to cancer a few days before, and it seemed that our life was revolving around that sadness. When a child dies before his father, that’s hard. But at the same time as we were grieving, something else was catching my attention and helping to divert my mind from our sorrow.

A month or two earlier, the Lord had laid it on my heart to purchase the domain name christianindiebooks.com. I had felt an urge to try to help the struggling independent authors who were looking for a Christian site to list their books: a website that would help Christian buyers find worthwhile books without having to go through the secular sites, and a way for Authors to point buyers to their own websites if that is the way they wished to offer their books for sale. I hated the fact that, as independent Authors, we had no Christian site on the internet dedicated specifically to directing readers to good uplifting independently published Christian books.

I had mentioned my concerns a couple of times in my interactions with online writers’ groups. I even had a form to collect names of authors interested in taking part. Suddenly, right at the same time as I was dealing with the death of a step son, the form started gaining in activity. I started to panic, not usually a good thing, but in this case it caused me to reach out to a web designer I knew, who could handle the complexity of what I was going to need.

It was starting to come together; writers were interested, but the accuser knew my weak point, and started hounding me. “Who do you think you are? You don’t know what you’re getting into. Your just a dreamer.” He had all the right arguments, and yet, I had believed I had heard from God or I would never have start this. I believed that in some way, this project would produce fruit for the Lord. There was no way I would have tackled something so huge without the nudge from my Savior.

I was even getting some encouraging feedback, but at the same time, I was seeing some of the problems I would be facing. What had I gotten myself into? How could I possibly make it work?

That evening before retiring, we sat down to read, and the Bible fell open to Psalm 1:

Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.

NKJV

I had recently backed away from any writers’ groups or training that was not Christian in principle. I wanted to receive my counsel only from Christians. My whole point in starting Christian Indie Books was to have a setting to display Christian content books that was not part of a network that promoted a lot of ungodly content.

And I did delight in God’s word, and loved to meditate on it both day and night. Was I like a “tree planted by the rivers of water?” Would my obedience in following God’s direction bring “fruit in it’s season?” If so, then I was also entitled to claim the words, “whatever he does shall prosper.”

God knows when we need that little bit of extra encouragement, and, if we are tuned in to hear His voice, He always finds a way of reaching out to us. Thank You Father!

If you have ever experienced similar encouragement from the Father, please share it with us in the comment section below.

For the previous post, see: Is it Even Possible to Live without Amazon?