…in a way I’d never seen it before. Don’t you love when that happens?

Reading through Psalm 1.

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. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. 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.

Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

I’ve always settled in the first half of the scripture. I love it. I want to be that tree.

But it’s the second half that breaks my heart today. I’ve read it time and again… but now I see it for the first time.

The ‘wicked will not stand in the judgment’ never made sense to me before. Of course they’ll stand in judgment… they’re wicked… and they’ll be judged for that.

But will they?

I mean, there is a judgment they will face, but I don’t think it is the one to which this scripture refers. I think this scripture refers to the judgment followers of Christ will face when we present our life’s work to God.

The ‘wicked’ will not be at that judgment. Jesus will have already looked at them and said, “Depart from me, for I never knew you.”

The terrible thing is when I think of the ‘wicked’, I think of a guy with a twisted mustache, shifty eyes and menacing smile. But that’s not always the physical description. Most of the time, it’s just the guy next door.

The ‘wicked’ is my neighbor that doesn’t know Jesus. My friend that does not claim Jesus as her Lord and Savior. That’s the ‘wicked’. No shifty eyes. No menacing smile. No twisted mustache. Just a person that is lost in a world of false realities.

So, the non-believer that abandons a lucrative career to bring books to 3rd world schools; the agnostic that spends years caring for the marginalized; the atheist that does more to love their neighbor than most professed Christians… they will not present their life’s work before God.

That’s heartbreaking.

Do you interpret this differently? Please discuss.