Termination Dust: 5 of 5

Thoughts on Psalm 90 and September

Last month I again spent several days in Utah, an area where I lived part of my teenage years. I am now twice as old. Those years seem long ago; yet time has passed very quickly. As people “in Christ,” we have not experienced—and never will—God’s unbridled wrath. But perhaps you have become acutely aware of the brevity of life. Perhaps you have suffered in some way the excruciating effects of the Fall. Perhaps you have learned something of God’s dealings with sin and of the fleeting nature of life. And you want to respond with wisdom and with a fear of God.

How do we respond to the brevity of life? How do we respond with wisdom? Compare these two possibilities:

“Life is short. I need to get busy. I need to get up, to work harder, to study better, and to invest in my family. I need to give the gospel more faithfully. No more games! There is work to do.”

Or, “Return, O Yahweh! Be sorry for Your servants. Satisfy us with Your lovingkindness. Make us glad. Let Your work and Your majesty appear to Your servants. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us; and confirm for us the work of our hands.”

The first is not all bad. But the second mirrors what Moses prays in the remaining verses of this psalm. I would suggest that here we have a Holy-Spirit-inspired application and response to the brevity of life. Moses has just “numbered his days,” and they numbered 70 or 80 years (though, of course, God gave him a few more). What follows (and this is my attempt at a summary) is a humble appeal to God for grace (vv. 13-17). Or, in other words—words with which Moses began this psalm—it is a responding to life’s brevity by fleeing to the eternal God for refuge. The Christian servant may rest in the One who was here before the mountains were born. Hide in Him who, from everlasting to everlasting, is God. Pray to the Father in the name of Jesus with words like these:

“Have compassion. Make me glad! Show me Your glory! And establish. (That has the sound of permanence.) Establish—for I certainly cannot. Establish the works of my hands!”

This has implications for how we carry out the work of our Lord’s last commission to the church to make disciples. It is not merely a matter of working harder. It is not at all a matter of mustering our own strength for the task. It has everything to do with an appeal for God to show His own glory in working and in doing what we cannot do. Let’s work. Let’s work very hard! But only as we completely rely upon the grace of God.