How to Build a Stronger Life

How to Build a Stronger Life

This past Mother’s Day, I spoke in church on Three Great Traits of a Wonder Woman. Point Two was “She Brings on the Blessings”. Blessing means the ability to have a happy, flourishing, and thriving life. Blessed occurs 45 times in O.T.  and 19 of these are in the Psalms!  I strung together three Psalms to lay out three ways to build a stronger life. Note the “How to” in each verse is highlighted in red and underlined for emphasis:

Psalm 1

Blessed is the one

who does not walk in step with the wicked

or stand in the way that sinners take

or sit in the company of mockers,

2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,

and who meditates on his law day and night.

3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,

which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf does not wither—

whatever they do prospers.

4 Not so the wicked!

They are like chaff

that the wind blows away.

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,

nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,

but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

How does the truth in Psalm 1 improve a life?

*We become like a tree planted by streams of water (our life becomes an oasis of shade to others)

*We yield fruit (produces a fruit harvest)

*We do NOT wither (sink, drop down, languish, fade, crumble away, wear down)

* We DO prosper (advance, succeed, thrive, gain victory)

The key to this success?

Delight (pleasure, desire, purpose to be in) and Meditates (declare, ponder, mutter, utter, speak, muse, study) on the Word!

Psalm 52

But I am like an olive tree
 flourishing in the house of God;
I trust in God’s unfailing love
for ever and ever.
Psalm 52:8

The Improved Strength:

We will flourish (have a green, luxuriant, and fresh vibrant life)

The Key to This Success?

Trust (be bold, confident, and fully reliant) in God’s unfailing love

Psalm 92

The righteous will flourish(bud, sprout)  like a palm tree,
they will grow (increase)  like a cedar of Lebanon;
planted in the house of the Lord,
they will flourish in the courts of our God.
They will still bear fruit  (yield, flourish) in old age,
they will stay fresh(full of sap) and green (luxuriant) ,
proclaiming, “The Lord is upright;
he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.”  (Ps 92:12-15)

The Improved Strength:

*We will flourish (grow and sprout) like the date palms in an oasis

*We will grow like a cedar of Lebanon. This tree had the strongest and broadest trunk and was often used to build the King’s palace and the temple

*We will bear fruit and flourish (repeated three times in this psalm) in our old age (once we begin to grey)

*We will stay fresh and luxuriant.

The Key to this Success?

Proclaim (declare, display, disclose in an obvious way) The Lord is upright (He is straight and right);
he is my Rock (a stone of strength), and there is no wickedness (unrighteousness, or injustice) in him

A simple application to begin to gain this flourishing, vibrant, thriving, and joyful life is to develop a daily devotional plan to learn and apply the Bible to your life. Of course, I recommend my award- winning Creative Bible Studies:

Discovering Hope in the Psalms

Discovering Joy in Philippians

Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament (also a Finalist in the ECPA Book of the Year awards)

(co authored with Jean E Jones and Karla Dornacher)