Psalm 90 - God’s Eternity and Human Frailty
A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.
Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
You turn us back to dust,
and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”
For a thousand years in your sight
are like yesterday when it is past,
or like a watch in the night.You sweep them away; they are like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning;
in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
in the evening it fades and withers.For we are consumed by your anger;
by your wrath we are overwhelmed.
You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your countenance.For all our days pass away under your wrath;
our years come to an end like a sigh.
The days of our life are seventy years,
or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;
even then their span is only toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
Who considers the power of your anger?
Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.
So teach us to count our days
that we may gain a wise heart.
Turn, O Lord! How long?
Have compassion on your servants!
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us,
and as many years as we have seen evil.
Let your work be manifest to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and prosper for us the work of our hands—
O prosper the work of our hands!
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
When We’ve Been There Ten Thousand Years Bright, Shining as the Sun
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. - Psalm 90:4
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. - II Peter 3:8
Where will you be a thousand years from now? Ten thousand? A million? A billion?
We live in time and space and are subjects to the limitations of such. Time is depleted and never regained. Not so in our Father’s house. There will be no wasted moments or years. There will be no waiting, no boredom, and no hurry.
Time will be turned upside down, inside out, and all around. It will be but a faded memory. Eternity, of which we are now at least somewhat ignorant, will be as real as the second hand is today. What is incomprehensible will be comprehended. What is vast will remain vast, but our capacity to experience it will be transformed.
We may not comprehend it, but we don’t have to be ignorant of it either. We can at the very least, know this: There is so much that we do not know now, but someday will know fully even as we are now fully known.
It is about becoming eternally minded, living every day with eternity in our focus, in our hopes, and in our hearts. We are called to live on a different plane with an attitude of amazement.
“While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen…” is how Paul put it in II Corinthians 4:18. It is a matter of choosing our view and sticking with it.
Can you imagine bright shining as the sun for eternity? I can’t either, but I can wait a little longer for it with the wonderment with which a child waits for Christmas. Now is the time to make decisions for eternity, because this is all the time anyone will ever get.
This is all the time that ever will be. We are about the step out of this realm into the timeless expanse of eternal glory. We are about to leap into God’s everlasting day.
