TIME AND ETERNITY
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, I pray to You: “O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come… and our eternal home” (paraphrase, Isaac Watts, 1674–1748).
Read PSALM 90
1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place
throughout all generations.
2 Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
3 You turn people back to dust,
saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
4 A thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
5 Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—
they are like the new grass of the morning:
6 In the morning it springs up new,
but by evening it is dry and withered.
7 We are consumed by your anger
and terrified by your indignation.
8 You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your presence.
9 All our days pass away under your wrath;
we finish our years with a moan.
10 Our days may come to seventy years,
or eighty, if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
11 If only we knew the power of your anger!
Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.
12 Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
13 Relent, Lord! How long will it be?
Have compassion on your servants.
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
for as many years as we have seen trouble.
16 May your deeds be shown to your servants,
your splendor to their children.
17 May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us;
establish the work of our hands for us—
yes, establish the work of our hands.
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Meditate
“First, there were sundials. Then came water clocks, hourglasses and mechanical clocks. Now we have digital clocks and watches. Our culture is certainly obsessed with time!” (Warren Wiersbe).
Think Further
Herod should have remembered this psalm! His acceptance of divinity (Acts 12:21–23) appears ridiculous when seen against the majestic background of God’s eternal grandeur contrasted with mankind’s frailty and rootlessness (1,2). There’s something intensely sad about seeing how the years have changed elderly people from active, energetic young adults to those who—in the words of verse 6 (ESV)—are fading and withering. Let us remember that our life in this world is not eternal, despite modern medical advances, and that God still hates sin. Verse 11 is difficult, but it “may well mean that God’s wrath towards men is proportionate to the reverence they fail to show towards him. That, at bottom, is what sin is” (Michael Wilcock).
Taking stock of our lives before God involves prayer for teaching, for mercy, for hope and for gladness (12–15). Then, in verses 16 and 17 we see that there is something even bigger than God’s wrath: his grace: “the grace that meets the demands for justice and righteousness and can therefore bless sinners in spite of their sin” (Michael Wilcock). Fulfillment would need to wait for the New Testament, but it is glimpsed here—just as the psalmist’s prayer that his work would prosper finds an echo in Paul’s words, “you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Cor. 15:58).
However frank the psalm may be regarding human mortality, notice that it does not have either the first or the last word. It is bookended by a confident assertion about God in verses 1 and 2 and the prayer for his intervention at the end. When we are most conscious of the reality of our short and troubled lives, we need to look to the eternity of our Creator God and trust in his mercy and grace. One day we will come home!
Apply
If you can remember the words of Isaac Watts’s paraphrase of this psalm, sing or read it, and make it your prayer. An internet search can also locate the lyrics and music for you.
Closing prayer
Heavenly Father, I thank and praise You for the hope Jesus brings. In him I can live fully now, and one day I will live forever.
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