“A Psalm Story”
By Rev. Dr. Trygve Johnson
Sunday, June 7, 2026
Reading: Psalm 1
- Question
I'd like to begin this morning with a simple question: Do you have a prayer? A daily prayer, a prayer that you go back to again and again, a prayer that you can say to yourself when you're going out, coming in, you're lying down and you're rising up. A prayer that works like a key that unlocks us from the small, cramped worlds in which most of us are trapped and so desperately want to flee. A prayer that unlocks that door to that little room and launches you out into this wide-open country of salvation, a geography, a topography filled with wild wonders. Do you have that prayer? A prayer that works like a compass that orients you to your best self.
I have a prayer and I'd like to share it with you if it's okay. It's simple. It won't take long to learn. Here's my prayer:
“Lord, make me like a tree planted by streams of water. Amen.”
That's my prayer. In my going out, in my coming in, my lying down, my rising up, this is my prayer. “Lord, make me like a tree planted by streams of water.” Sometimes I have to enact this prayer daily, and my fourteen-year-old daughter, Ella will come alongside me, and I'll just be standing in the living room like this. And she'll say, “Dad, what you doing?”
And I say, “I'm just praying.”
“What you praying, Dad?”
“Lord, make me like a tree planted by streams of water.”
It's been my prayer since I was about nineteen years old, and I like to tell you that story just a little bit if it's okay.
- Storied Memory
As long as my memory has reached, I have had an intuitive love for trees. I grew up within the emerald forests of the Pacific Northwest on an island called Whidbey floating on the currents of the Puget Sound. I was left to my own uninterrupted imagination, running wild in those forests.
My favourite trees to visit, however, were specific to the Olympic Peninsula and Rainier National Forest and those large, tall trees. Partly why I love those trees is they were introduced to me by my grandpa Johnson. Grandpa would take me there. He was a Scandinavian logger by trade. His friends called him the Swede, though that was a mocking joke because he was Norwegian.
He was not a man of learned letters, just having a high school education, but he was one of the wisest people I ever knew. You probably know this, there's a difference between being intelligent, book smart, degrees by your name, and actually being wise. Grandpa was wise.
Grandpa's office was the forest, and his pen was the handle of an axe. His shoulders were as thick and as wide and as sturdy as the Cascade Mountains he would work within. In my imagination, he is forever wearing a red and black flannel shirt with rainbow suspenders, one might see at a Grateful Dead concert. Grandma and grandpa would often take me into the forest. I'd get shipped away during the summer for a few weeks at a time. I used to think it was because my mom and dad wanted me to have time with grandma and grandpa, but now that I am a dad, I know that my mom and dad just wanted me out of the house. So, I would spend time with grandma and grandpa, and on those summer excursions, grandpa would take me into the forest. To him the forest was a sacred place, a holy place, a sanctuary, much like this.
I remember walking along fern obstructed trails that felt more like roads into an alternative kingdom. I remember the feeling of his hands as he led me down those mothy paths, giant, strong workman hands that felt as oiled and smooth and as rough as a well conditioned catcher's mitt.
Some trees that we would pass along those fern obstructed trails, some of the trees dressed gracefully, moss falling lightly off branches as if they were silk shawls hanging off the arms of a lady. Sometimes the forest became so quiet it was like holding its breath, watching my every move, and then in the next moment exhaling an explosion of sound from every living creature would fill it with a cacophony of sound. It was amazing to me how quiet and loud a forest could be. Sometimes the wind would rustle through the leaves in such a way that it would sound like an energetic congregation rising up to sing the doxology with full hearts. And sometimes, if I was really lucky, late in the summer or early fall, my hand in my grandpas, the wind would pass through the trees and it would sound like a Coltrane melody, a loose, intuitive, complicated yet simple theme, held together by a thread as fragile as a breath, and the trees hanging on every note would sway in rhythm slow and graceful to a rhythm only they could fully comprehend.
I think it was on these walks that I learned to begin to love trees.
I remember one time when I was probably a little guy, around seven or eight years old, on one of those summer excursions, my grandfather took me and my cousin Janet, along with my grandma Johnson, into the Rainier National Forest. We took a long winding road up to where you can't drive anymore. Found some picnic tables, had lunch, and then my grandfather led us deep into the forest, one of those little paths, obstructed ferns, until we finally came to this Douglas fir, the kind of tree that looks like a skyscraper, like the CN Tower in downtown Toronto. You could crane your head and look up and not see the top. To put your hands out, it would take eight grown men to wrap around its circumference.
It was one of those trees that felt like it had been planted in the story of Genesis, and it was still living. Deeply rooted, thick and tall, majestic. Grandfather with that big paw. I remember he would put his hand on the bark. I was standing next to him, a little guy, seven or eight. And to me Grandpa was this mountain himself. I remember him craning his neck, looking up, and he had this little whistle. He put his hand as if he was trying to feel the pulse of the tree and he looked up and then down and he said something to me that stuck in my heart forever. This is what I hope you become. He said: “Hmm.”
Then he took his hand down, turned and walked away. I had no idea what he was saying. But I never forgot it. This is what I hope you become, Trygve, standing under the shadow of that majestic Douglas fir.
Years later, when I was about 19 years old. I had a summer gig working at Don Boyer's Chevrolet. When they would take in a used car, it would go into the back of the shop where it would be met by me. I would wash that car. I would take out the seats. (That was back in the day when you could like take out the seats of cars. Some of you may remember that). Not fancy computer cars. They would go to the back of the shop, and it was my job to wash and wax it; scrub the rugs and get it ready to go back on the lot so they could sell the car and turn a profit. It was a great summer job. I was left alone. I could work all day. No one would really bother me. I had a sense of accomplishment. I’d get a paycheck every other week. It was great.
One of the things I loved is I got to listen to whatever I wanted to during the day, and I would flip around. This is before I you know, iPhones, and we listened to the radio. And my dial would find itself on this station 104.5, 109.6, different stations. I'm not sure why, but this one particular day I found it on a Christian radio station, and I was listening. I was a young Christian, I was trying to grow in my faith, and so I would occasionally listen to the Christian radio. And I remember, I think it was Chuck Colson or Chuck Swindoll, or somebody with a Chuck name. He was going on and on about what he wanted – young adults to know about the faith. And he said, “The first thing I want is for my son to memorize Psalm 1.”
I said, “Psalm 1.” I'm cleaning a, Chevrolet, the Malibu, whatever it was I was working on at that time. Psalm 1. I didn't know Psalm 1. I remember I went home, opened my Bible, and I read this Psalm.
Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers, but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on this law they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, whose leaves never wither, and in all that they do they prosper.
I couldn't help but reach back to that moment with Grandpa Johnson.
This is what I hope you become.
- Psalm 1
Psalm 1, the first prayer of the Bible, begins with an image of a tree. I have no idea whether that was in my grandpa's head, but I claimed it. This is maybe what my grandpa Johnson was talking about. This is what he wanted me to be. And so, I started praying: “Lord, make me like a tree planted by streams of water.”
Yield their fruit in this season whose leaves never wither, and in all that I do, I could prosper. Lord, make me like a tree. Amen. That was my prayer then, and it has been my prayer ever since. As it's guided me through university and seminary and PhD programs and marriage: and kids and lots of transitions, Lord, make me like a tree.
Wherever I've gone, this has been my prayer that has almost been more like a companion. We need those prayers because if the Word of God is the oxygen of our faith, then our prayer life is the lungs of it. It's been said, I don't know by who, but it's been said, or I have heard, that what you pray is what you become. Which raises the question then about identity. Who is it that we're trying to become? What is it you pray?
I'm praying this: that I be like a tree.
- The No and the Yes
How? How do you become that? How do you take a prayer and to make that into an actionable life? Well, the scripture gives us some guide if we pay attention. It starts with what we learn to say no to and then open ourselves up to say yes to something. The Christian life is lived between a no and a yes. You have to learn what to say no to so that you have space in your life to say yes to the best things.
Notice how it begins: “Happy are those who do not...” That no often connotates a furrowed browed, disapproving parent. No is the word to steal our joy. But here in this moment, the opening prayer of the Bible, “happy are those who do not...” no is actually the path towards happiness. Learning what to say no to is actually going to be the path that leads to joy. Say no to the advice of the wicked.
To the path that sinners tread, to the seat of scoffers. Say no to the advice, to what you hear, anyone counseling you to be devious, anyone counseling you to be deceptive, anyone speaking to you to be manipulative, say no to that. Walk away. Say no to putting your feet where sinners tread. It's where you go. Say no to what you're listening to, say no to going to places that you know are not going to lead to your flourishing. You have agency. You're not an indentured servant. You can say no to things that you know are not right, going to places that you know you should not be.
I think that's maybe what this Chuck TV or radio was trying to say that he wanted his son to know. I have a sixteen-year-old son going on 23, and I'm trying to get him to pay attention. Like, hey, I trust you, but learn to say no to the path where sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers, what you say. Say no to sitting in that holy huddle where you start talking about someone else. You ever been in that huddle? I've been in that huddle. I've led that huddle. The huddle that is willing to speak behind someone else's back, to smile to their face and then quietly behind them plunge the knife. Say no to that.
Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked or take the paths that sinners tread or sit in the seat of scoffers. They pay attention to what they hear, they pay attention to where they go, they pay attention to what they say. Say no to anything that is going to use those gifts from God as a way to harm yourself or others. But if you say no to something, what do you need to say yes to? Say yes, it says.
Say yes to the law of the Lord, but their delight shall be in the law of the Lord, and on this law, they meditate day and night. But their delight. Do you have a favourite holiday? My favourite holiday is Christmas. I particularly love Christmas with little kids, with the young'uns, the little ones. Because they get so excited. They make their little lists in November with what they want. They see it on the commercials. They know they're gonna get some stuff. And they tell you what you want. I want I want that doll. I want that truck; I want this whatever. And I love it. I love the anticipation of Christmas. We're a Christmas morning opening family, not Christmas Eve. My wife grew up a Christmas Eve. I grew up a Christmas morning. It was a big deal. We had to call in the marriage therapist. It was for real. But I won. I won. We're going to be a Christmas morning family. Why? Because I want that look on Christmas morning. When the kids roll down and they tear into this gift that they have been asking and waiting and hoping, just hoping it's there. And then they open it up and you get that one pure moment where the thing that they ask for is the thing that they now hold, and their face, their face is just delight.
That's what I hear. Their delight is in the law of the Lord. Their delight is like Christmas morning. Gift opening up. And what's the gift? The gift is the law of the Lord. Now we hear law and we hear judicial. We hear law, we hear disapproving father. We hear law and we hear discipline. But what if the law was Christmas morning? What if the law was God's gift to us to open it up so that our faces would delight like a child? The law of the Lord, what is that law? Well, Jesus answers it clearly. Matthew 23, verse 37 through 40. Look it up. What's the law of the Lord? To love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, all of your might, and to love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Jesus is summarizing the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, where the first five are about how to love God. The second five, how to love your neighbour, which, by the way, also includes learning how to love yourself. The law of the Lord, to delight in this law, like a child at Christmas morning, is all about learning to love God with all that you have. Not a part of you, not just the Sunday morning, let's get dressed up part. But the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday part, all of you integrated in to love the Lord purely and freely. That's what we were made for. To enjoy and to delight forever. And all of what God, the Creator, has made, and to learn to love other people with freedom and to learn to love yourself and to forgive yourself. That love, when it becomes a delight in you, when you say yes to the law of the Lord, yes to the God who says yes to you, you become like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, whose leaf never withers, and in all, in all that you do, you will prosper.
Lord, make me like a tree planted by streams of water. Make me like a tree planted by streams of water. By my willingness to say no and my courage to say yes, yes to the law of the Lord, and I will have fruit in its season.
- Living Like A Tree
Fruit in its season. Let's hang out there for just a minute. Fruit in its season invites us to a life of patience. Not every fruit comes in every season. We just live in this 24-7 competitive, I gotta do more, I gotta be more, I gotta press on, I gotta skim over the concrete to get to my next appointment. AI inducing efficiency culture. Do you feel it? They'll bear fruit in its season. Take a breath. Not every season is gonna bear fruit. Sometimes it's about planting, sometimes it's just waiting. You look at a tree, and it looks like nothing is going on, but it's alive every single day, a little deeper, a little thicker, a little taller. It's patient. That's what I'm driving at. To be like a tree means that you have embraced a life of patience.
I was a college chaplain for twenty some years and this is the image I would like to give to students that were just always in a damn hurry. A hurry to grow up, a hurry to do it all, and I would just say be like a tree. The Christian life has not lived on adrenaline, lived in the rhythmic weeks and holidays in relationships and in worship at the table. Be like a tree whose leaf never withers. Why does it never wither? Because it's rooted.
One of the great gifts that you have right now where you're seated, is you are rooted here. In this church, in this congregation, among these friends, acquaintances, in this place, in this church has roots and they go deep. God has planted you here. A tree does not grow in an abstract, but in a soil, in a place, and one of the keys, I think, is learning to claim your place. That the place is a gift. God has you here, maybe for reasons you can't even see, maybe for something that is larger than your imagination can comprehend; that your life here in this moment is where God has rooted you.
Where are you rooted right now? And if you are rooted by the streams of living water, which is a baptismal image, your leaf will never wither. You'll be vibrant. And then it goes on to say that all that you do will prosper, and it isn't speaking to some kind of cheap prosperity gospel, a contractual relationship with God where if I do this, I'll get this. No, no, no, no. It's pointing to what we were made for. That you were made to have a beautiful soul. You were made and designed to flourish. That all that you do will prosper.
What I love about the image of the tree is that the tree is quiet and stately, it never draws attention to itself, and yet privately it is doing what we all need the tree to do. It is taking in all the poison gas of carbon dioxide and recycling it and putting out fresh air into the world that we might breathe. Without trees, we die. The church, the living church, is like a tree, taking in all that toxic air from the culture, recycling it and putting fresh air out. I mean, I hear it in the choir, the voices finding harmony, putting new sound into a world where there's so much cacophony of hatred. That is what we do. We take in and we recycle and we put out something clean and pure and true and beautiful.
The tree is rooted and it keeps the soil from eroding; it keeps its place alive and stable. That's what this church does. It's what you do. It provides shade for the weary and food for the hungry and strong limbs for children to play on, and all that you do, you prosper. That and that, and that, is the point of the gospel. The gospel's not about getting
A free pass out of hell. The gospel is an invitation to participate in the living life of God right here, right now, where you are rooted, so that all of you might prosper and flourish. That's what Jesus came to die and to live and resurrect and ascend to heaven for. Jesus came to take away the sin of the world, and he did.
He came to rise again, wiping away the cobwebs from his eyes and stepping out of the darkness into the fresh light of a new dawn, and saying to everyone who has ears to hear, peace be with you. The peace has now been accomplished once and for all, now and forever for you and your neighbour and everyone you are called to love within your rooted sphere of influence. You are designed and called to prosper in all that you do, because that is what Jesus came for. It is what you were made for and it is the gift for you to pursue today.
So, If you don't have a prayer. Take mine. “Lord, make me like a tree, planted by streams of water.” In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.