Psalm 90
90 Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were born
Or You gave birth to the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
3 You turn mortals back into dust
And say, “Return, you sons of mankind.”
4 For a thousand years in Your sight
Are like yesterday when it passes by,
Or like a watch in the night.
5 You have swept them away like a flood, they fall asleep;
In the morning they are like grass that sprouts anew.
6 In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew;
Toward evening it wilts and withers away.
7 For we have been consumed by Your anger,
And we have been terrified by Your wrath.
8 You have placed our guilty deeds before You,
Our hidden sins in the light of Your presence.
9 For all our days have dwindled away in Your fury;
We have finished our years like a sigh.
10 As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years,
Or if due to strength, eighty years,
Yet their pride is only trouble and tragedy;
For it quickly passes, and we disappear.
11 Who understands the power of Your anger
And Your fury, according to the fear that is due You?
12 So teach us to number our days,
That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.
13 Do return, Lord; how long will it be?
And be sorry for Your servants.
14 Satisfy us in the morning with Your graciousness,
That we may sing for joy and rejoice all our days.
15 Make us glad according to the days You have afflicted us,
And the years we have seen evil.
16 Let Your work appear to Your servants
And Your majesty to their children.
17 May the kindness of the Lord our God be upon us;
And confirm for us the work of our hands;
Yes, confirm the work of our hands.
90 Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations
The Lord is our dwelling place and dwelling place can be interpreted as “refuge”. When I think about “dwelling place” I think, “my home”. And my home is my refuge. It is where I am always welcome. It is where I rest. It is where I live without any pretenses. All my stuff is here. I feel safe here. I want to share my home with people that I love. It is where I return to at the end of the day and rest. I feel safe here. When it all gets to be too much, I can come home and just shut the world out. It is where I want to throw parties. I am comfortable here. I belong here. So when the psalmist, (it is believed to be Moses), makes the statement that the Lord is our dwelling place, refuge, home, how then do I understand the claim he is making.
I think that we all feel the desire to have a home. A place where we belong and feel safe. A place where we can rest that is our own. Ultimately, it is God who is our home. Physically? No! But God is where we rest and feel safe. God protects us. All that really matters that is within us must reside in God. Wherever I live, God is all that is home.
Our Finitude
3 You turn mortals back into dust
And say, “Return, you sons of mankind.”In the morning they are like grass that sprouts anew.
6 In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew;
Toward evening it wilts and withers away. 9 For all our days have dwindled away in Your fury;
We have finished our years like a sigh.
10 As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years,
Or if due to strength, eighty years,
Yet their pride is only trouble and tragedy;
For it quickly passes, and we disappear. 12 So teach us to number our days,
That we may present to You a heart of wisdom. 17 May the kindness of the Lord our God be upon us;
And confirm for us the work of our hands;
Yes, confirm the work of our hands.
I think that we all want our lives to count for something. That we didn’t just exist. That somehow we left the world a better place. The people we love and those who knew us, would say that their lives are better because of us. Selfishness leads us to invest in ourselves. Clearly, we are going to die and we never know when. One minute we are flourishing and the next we are withering. It is while we are flourishing that we have the chance to make a difference in this world. If we choose to squander that time living recklessly and in self indulgence, we will come to a pile of regrets that we can’t seem to sort out. And by “living recklessly and in self indulgence” I am not talking about a debaucheress lifestyle that sinks further in debt to the bank and our fellowman. What I mean to say is when we give our best only to ourselves. We live a lifestyle where the thing that gets our constant attention is ourselves. Moving through relationships that offer support of what we want to do with our lives. Cutting off those relationships when we’ve changed our minds. Seeing a vision of ourselves that we are not quite yet and spending all our time in pursuit of the better us the we believe we could be. Believing that the moments of kindness that we offer others makes us a loving person. Yet the road of self-pursuit leads to a lonely life. If the best years of our lives were spent in self-indulgence, investing our time in only our interests, our goals, our desires. Giving the best of ourselves to ourselves, then even when we have not passed, but come to the point of withering, what do we have to give to anyone else at that point. Our needs?! Our burdens?! Our sickness and disease?! We may have lived our life well in our own eyes, but who will be by our side as we are withering. If we have not invested the best of ourselves in the people we love, and those that love us, who will celebrate with us as we are flourishing? It will only be the shallow, here-and-now relationships because all of our relationships are shallow when we don’t invest the best of ourselves in relationships that matter. In fact maybe us giving our best to others was really only us trying to impress others so they would consider us valuable.
Really embracing our finitude is to learn “to number our days”. When we number our days, we can’t help but make them count. If I organize my day, and set a timer to each task I am working on, because the timer is ticking, I do not let myself get distracted. I realize I have 50 minutes set aside to do X. And if I don’t get it done, there is no time for the rest of the day and I will have to wait till tomorrow to finish it. If I am working on a project and I have a deadline, I am less likely to waste time because there are consequences to not finishing the project on time. If I have to be somewhere by x:xx o’clock then I have to evaluate whether I have time to do x before I go. A very common behavior for most of us is when we are about to go on vacation, we suddenly become very productive. We get everything done because we are not going to be around to do it for another week. I see it everywhere, when there is a looming deadline, productivity goes way up and we become selective about how we spend our time.
If I am not clear about what I am trying to do with my life and the mark I want to leave, I will squander it. I don’t have to be Steve Jobs to have a life well lived. Maybe the mark I may want to leave is teaching my kids to love others. Or a business that is honest and ethical and provides employment for others. Songs, poems, a journal. Memories and experiences for my family and friends. If I am just trying to make a living, make more money, buy a bigger house, avoid problems, invest in myself, that is not the mark I want to leave. I have to be really clear about what I am trying to make my life count for in order to know what not to spend my few days under the sun, doing.
If I try to build a life that does not find its refuge in God, it will all be for nothing. God is the giver of life. Like Jesus says in Matthew 6 I can build my life on sand or I can build my life on rock. A life built on sand, one that does not embrace God as my refuge, will be blown away in the end. There will be nothing left. A life embracing God as my refuge will stand forever.