Of Gusto and Hungry Bears
You only go around once in life, so you’ve got to grab for all the gusto you can." Some of you may remember that television commercial. But, what exactly is gusto? In the dictionary, it is defined as "hearty or keen enjoyment." And according to that commercial, you gain it by drinking a certain brand of beer. I don’t know about that, but the question that commercial raises is very important. As humans, we are looking for gusto. But where do we find this elusive gusto?
What road do we take to arrive at gusto? The psalmist begins by telling us that the road to avoid is ungodly counsel. I might say, "If you want to go to Westville from here, don’t turn right on Highway 6. That road will get you to Walkerton, not to Westville." In the same way, the Lord says, "If you want to find joy and gusto, don’t go this way." So, where then do we find true gusto? Well, the road to joy is God’s Word, the Bible.
Psalm 1 starts off, “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.” Blessed" means "happy". Blessed are the poor in spirit -- happy are the poor in spirit. Here the psalmist says, Happy is the person who doesn’t walk with the wicked, stand with the sinners, or sit with the mockers.
What is happiness? Happiness has more to do with what we are than who we are or what we have. We used to say, "a chicken in every pot" then it was a "car in every garage." Now we have two or three cars in every garage, boats sitting in the driveways. And we have more money than people have ever had and we still are not happy.
The strange thing is that if you seek happiness as an end in life you will never find it; it will always escape you. It’s like catching a soap bubble - you think you’ve got it, then it bursts and it’s gone and there’s nothing left.
One form of happiness and a tremendous blessing is having children, because one of the great things in having little ones around is to remind us of the growth process. Most of you can remember when your kids (or grandkids) were able to sit up. At first we watch their attempts to stay upright without slumping over. Then we get excited when they learn to crawl and pull themselves up to stand. Then they start walking by holding onto our hands or furniture but it isn’t long until they start walking on their own. That is how growth progresses. As we mature we learn to sit, then to stand and then to walk. It is a natural progression — sit, stand, walk.
But did you notice in this first verse how the person’s progression is backwards? His growth is reversed. The person begins by walking in the counsel of the wicked. Then they stand in the way of sinners. And, finally, they sit in the seat of mockers. For them it is: walk, stand, and sit. The momentum is going backwards — until he stops completely. He begins by being able to walk and ends up immobilized.
Do you see the progression there, from "walking" to "standing" to "sitting"? You see, a person, and especially a Christian, doesn’t usually jump right into the middle of sin. Usually it goes in stages. I like the way Eugene Peterson phrases it in The Message – Hanging out at Sin Saloon, slinking along Dead-End Road, and going to Smart-Mouth College.
And that’s the way it happens so often. Teen-agers (or adults for that matter) start to hang out with the wrong crowd. They don’t do anything wrong, they’re just hangin’ with them. But, pretty soon, they’re not walking any longer, they’re standing, and eventually they’re sitting and they’re doing the same ungodly things.
And Paul wrote the familiar warning, "Evil company corrupts good habits." (I Corinthians 15:33). You might have heard these phrases: You’re judged by the company you keep. Guilt by association.
Aesop has a fable called "A Donkey and His Purchaser". A man wanted to buy a donkey, and agreed with its owner that he should try out the animal before he bought him. So he took the donkey home and put him in the yard with his other donkeys. The new animal left all the others and joined up at once with the donkey that was most idle and the greatest eater of them all. When he saw this, the man put a halter on him, and led him immediately back to his owner. When he was asked how, in such a short time, he could have tried him out, he answered, "I don’t need to try him out; I know that he will be just like the one he chose for his companion." You’re judged by the company you keep.
“But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” Let me ask you: What makes you happy? What delights you? Is it straight A’s on a report card? Is it seeing one of your stocks go up 3 points? Is it getting a promotion at work? Is it buying a new dress? These things might make you happy for a few hours or days, but the feeling doesn’t last. Here, in Psalm 1, we learn that a person who experiences real gusto is someone who is happy, delighted, when they read God’s Word. Now, that may seem strange to you. What can be so exciting about sitting around reading the Bible all day? For many of us the fifteen or thirty minutes we spend in our devotions seem like a long time. But the psalmist didn’t spend all day reading the Bible. What he did constantly, day and night, was think about what the Scripture says, what it means, and how it should be applied in life. He meditated on the Bible.
Now remember, David didn’t have a pocket-sized copy of the Old Testament that he could stick in his coat pocket and pull out to read while he was tending his sheep. So, all week long, he spent time thinking about what he had heard on the Sabbath, meditating on what God’s Word meant to his life.
But I’ll tell you what is practical -- to read a few verses from the Bible when you get up in the morning and then to meditate on them all day long, to think through the day of ways that you can apply the scripture you read that morning to your own life. David says the righteous man meditates "day and night" -- meaning at all available moments. The same thing is said in Psalm 119:97, "Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day." So we’re clear on this: To meditate means to think seriously about God’s word even when you don’t have the text right in front of your eyes.
Kind of like that commercial for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. There’s a young man sitting in a waiting room of a vet’s office eating a RPB cup when the nurse calls his name. He’s really intent on this cup. She finally gets his attention and he stands up to head into the office and we see a little dog hanging on to his pants. But the guy doesn’t even notice the dog.
Satan is like a yappy little dog hanging on our pants. If we meditate (or focus) on our “Reese’s”, God’s word, then Satan is just a mere annoyance. But if we allow our focus to be compromised, then we put ourselves and our happiness at risk.
The psalmist has something here to say about compromise. We can’t compromise with that which is wrong, allowing evil to work its way into our lives. It often happens so slowly, so subtly, we hardly realize it’s taking place.
There’s another old fable in which a bird meets a fisherman with a can of worms and asks him for one. The fisherman says, "Sure, all I ask in return is one of your feathers." Well, a feather for a worm seemed a reasonable exchange to the bird, so he made the trade. The next day the bird was hungry again. He weighed the inconvenience of searching for food against the expediency of trading with the fisherman and decided in favor of the easier way. After all, it was only one feather. But after a few days of making such a trade, the bird had exchanged so many feathers that he couldn’t fly. At this point, the fisherman picked up the fat, naked bird and cooked him for dinner.
It’s very easy for the same thing to happen to us spiritually. We make an unwise decision. We say that it won’t affect us spiritually and, in fact, we may not be able to see the effect. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, one rationalization leads to another, until before we know it we’ve ended up down a road that we never intended to travel; the road of the counsel of the wicked, just a short step to sitting in the seat of mockers.
That’s how we ended up where we are today. An unwise decision by Adam to remain silent compromised our very souls. By not speaking in a crucial moment, by losing his focus, Adam failed God and allowed sin to gain a toehold in the world.
That’s why we need to resist even the slightest temptation to compromise our convictions. We need to meditate on God’s word and ignore that yappy little Satan whispering in our ear, “Oh, go on. God won’t care if you eat that apple.”
Winter was coming on and a hunter went out into the forest to shoot a bear out of which he planned to make a warm coat.
By and by he saw a big bear coming toward him and raised his gun and took aim.
"Wait," said the bear, "why do you want to shoot me?"
"Because I am cold," said the hunter, "and I need a coat."
"But I am hungry," the bear replied, "so maybe if we just talk this over a little, we could come to a compromise."
So the hunter sat down beside the bear and began to talk over the pros and cons. In the end, the hunter was well enveloped with the bear’s fur, and the bear had eaten his dinner.
We always lose out when we try to compromise with sin. It will consume us in the end.
So, go for the gusto. Find true happiness. Delight in the law of the Lord. Meditate on His law day and night. And watch out for hungry bears.
