Sunday Morning Meds--Soul Prosperity

“He is like a tree planted by streams of water, 

which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. 

Whatever he does prospers” Psalm 1:3 

Simple stuff, really. We’re hearing the voice of some ordinary shepherd here, reflecting on what he’s seen and heard out in the bush, right? The man (and woman) who lives right, who knows God’s grace, who is thankful daily, is like a tree planted by water, ever fruitful. On that person, no wilting, no folding—whatever he does prospers.

Now there’s a line that doesn’t need a dime’s worth of interpretation. You can take that to the bank: the righteous, the psalm suggests, will find their every last endeavor succeeding beyond their own wildest dreams.

“Whatever he does prospers” is an unrepentant-ly American line. If we obey God’s law and don’t hang around with low-lifes, Psalm 1 says, we’ll get all the goodies we’re dreaming of. Prosperity gospel.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Two hundred years ago, not far from where I live, the great American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led the Corps of Discovery up the muddy Missouri, looking for an overland passage to the Pacific Ocean. Just last week I followed the snaking Missouri through a good deal of South Dakota. I love the Lewis and Clark yarn. I admire the pluck and sheer human will of the thirty adventurers who crossed land where no white guy had ever left a footprint before. I’m a real fan.

But picture this for a minute. Meriwether Lewis carried a branding iron with his own name in the design, used it to mark trees, to brand them. True. Can you imagine what the Yankton Sioux thought of this white guy laying a hot brand on the bark of some hovering cottonwood, then stepping back, the bark still sizzling, and saying the trees were the property of the Great White Father?

Or how about this? An equally significant objective of the mission was to wrest trade with the Indians away from the French, to consolidate the work of the tribes out west, and to secure peace in the newly acquired frontier west. But not long after they returned, Hidatsas went after the Shoshonis, the Arikaras and the Sioux raided the Mandans. There was no peace. Just a few decades later, disease wiped out thousands from those very tribes, disease carried by white people.

Did the Lewis and Clark Expedition “prosper”? Well, in a way; they got back and forth to the Pacific. But the successes they desired weren’t exactly what they achieved. They never did find that easy overland route.

“It is not outward prosperity which the Christian most desires and values,” writes the old sage Spurgeon; “it is soul prosperity he longs for.” Why limit it? I'm thinking the vast majority of living, breathing human beings all seek "soul prosperity."

Soul prosperity: a certain largesse of character, a loving spirit, an unflinching generousness, peace in heart and mind, a sense of comfort with God’s designs for our lives, and a smile for eternity.

"Whatever he or she does prospers."  It is that simple, I guess: the shepherd-poet isn’t talking about Vegas or Wall Street high drama.

Soul prosperity. That's what we’re all after, isn’t it?