Psalm 90
V1
Oh Lord, the god who is sovereign over his people Israel, the one who rules over them as a king who cares for his people, providing protection, providing justice, providing stability. You have been our dwelling place. Not just a place to escape from the difficulties of life. Not just a temple in which we celebrate good times. Like a home is so much more than a house you are so much more than a building, a temple. It is not your good gifts, like the houses we live in, not the cities in which we live, but you are our dwelling; the place to where we return; the place where we get rest; the place where we are accepted.
And not just us, but you are a home for all generations, past and future, of those who call on your name, of those who accept your lordship over their lives. From the days of Abel to the last days of this world you have and will have your doors open to us.
V2
You never change. Since the mountains were born in the turbulent birth pains of creation and since you brought forth the ground, the earth, the world, the universe in the first day of creation until these days of rapid change in which we live, where in one year life changes more than in a hundred years of the dark ages, where professions are created and made redundant in a life time. You are God; the only God; the creator and you don’t change. You are the one unchanging thing in the midst of all our changes. You are the home that never changes.
And just as you don’t change so your message doesn’t change. Though the medium of the message changes from generation to generation, though things are done in ways never though possible or even desirable, each generation seemingly a stranger to the next, still the message stays the same. You are our creator. You are our home.
V3
And it is you that has decreed that we individual humans won’t live forever. When the parents of all failed to keep the evil which had invaded the spiritual dimensions from invading the physical realm, when the first of the race declared their independence you decreed that we are made from dust and to dust we shall return. We, the whole of humanity, the children of others, are to be ‘unmade’ from the physical realm in which we live, the dust to dust the breath of God back to God. Perfect humanity ceased. God allowed our ancestors to live in their independency but not forever. Fallen humanity would not live for ever. The sins of one would not be inflicted on others forever. The longing for a spiritual home would not be denied forever. There will be a time to return to God’s unmitigated presence.
V4
The contrast between fallen humanity with its limited life and the eternal God is immense. In your sight a thousand years, the addition of one on the furthest reaches of a calendar is like the simple addition of one day on the nearest side of the calendar in the experience of a fallen person. Or maybe not even that long. To you a millennium could even seem like a watch of the night, a few hours sleep for someone who wakes and hardly recalls the dreams that occupied the mind.
V5-6
The achievements of those past are swept away like the wind blows a pile of fallen leaves through a blustery night. Yet you are ever present, watching, listening, feeling, knowing, caring and working towards the good of those you created and loved. You are ever planning for the good of those who love you. Even though their lives might seem like the flowers of a desert that spring up when the occasional rain falls only to be made dry and lifeless by the next day of unending scorching sun. Still you plan and work with us towards those plans that are more favourable than any we can envisage, more advantageous for our eternal life than anything we can visualize. Help us accept and understand your long, long, long term plans for us, for family, our community of believers, our humanity.
V7
Our days are consumed by your anger. Our asserting our independence, our failures to hold the respect you are due, has lead to you leaving us in that state, in a state of sin, of corruption, of distortion from the good that you made. We feel your anger. It is seen in the sin that invades our world and brings earthquakes that pull down buildings, raging fires that burn through forests, fields and houses, destructive waves that overflow the seas sweeping away buildings, cars, trains, and that lead to death. It is seen in the sin that invades our relationships and brings anger, violence, bitterness, despair that leads to death. It is seen in the break down of families as court officials read through lists of names declare null and void the love that once flowed between two in a marriage. It is seen in the sin that invades our bodies and brings tumours, cancers, and old age that leads to death. We live in your anger.
V8.
And it isn’t just because of the sins of those before us. You see in the dark. You hear in the quiet lonely places that we think nobody knows. Our thoughts are easily read by you. Therefore you know each and every one of our failures, each of my failures. They have been set before you creating a mystical barrier that can only be broken by the massive spiritual explosion of the innocent death of a holy man-god.
V9
None of our days are free from the decay of this sin infested world. It seems like each and every one has its own troubles, its own blemished, or its own scars. We seem to endure each one until we finally give up with a moan, the moan of one who finally struggles to lift a huge weight above their heads.
V10
For those of the ancient days the moan came after 70 years. For those who were strong and liked the fight against the decaying effects of sin maybe 80 years. For us today it might even be another ten or twenty or even thirty years – not much next to infinity. It seems like every day in all those years are just trouble, just hard labour in the prison of independence from God’s ways. Yet despite the toil and pain they seem to pass before our eyes in the blind of an eyelid then our spirits fly back to the God from where they came.
V11
Yet though we live under the sentence of our ‘freedom’, in the prison of independence from God’s ways, away from your presence, who considers how much more fierce can your anger grow? Who considers your willingness to spend eternity away from those who you made and love so much if they won’t return to you? Your willingness to let us spend eternity in our freedom, our distance from your presence?
The first Israelites heard your voice, they saw the effects of your presence on Mount Sinai. There was thunder, lightning, the earth shook when you touch down on the Mountain. They feared for their life if they might hear you again. That fear is due to you because of the latent power of your wrath.
V12
Let us not feel the full force of your wrath but rather teach us to count our days aright so that we might have a heart of wisdom. Help us to consider the meaning behind the shortness of our lives. Help us to consider our short lives compared to your eternal nature. Help us to consider the shortness of our lives compared to the eternal hope you have put before us.
Help us to live in the now, in the fullness of the blessings that you have for us today, learning the lessons from the past and having a view of the future. Help us to see you working in the here and now, to rejoice with that, to receive love from that, to find hope in that. Help us to see that despite the effects of sin in the world, of God’s wrath in the world, there is hope, there is love, there is joy and there is life to be lived not just endured.
V13
God, turn back from this wrath. How long will we live with the overpowering effects of sin in our world? Have compassion on us, your servants. We want to show you how we can count our days aright. We plead for your mercy so that we don’t have to live under the full effects of our sin.
V14
At the beginning of the day show us your stead fast love, show us your commitment to us, to your covenant. Look upon the blood of Jesus and remember the price that was paid for our sins. We know accepting what Jesus has done won’t completely cure us until we have completed our days in this world. But lessen the pain so that we may rejoice and be glad in the short number of days that we might have left.
V15
Then we will be glad. So help us be glad. Help us know your healing power in this world of pain. Help us know it more and more so our joy will be so much more than our pain. Then we will have more days close to you than distant from you. Then we will see good for more years than we will see bad.
V16
May the good that you have started be seen in our lives. May the work of Jesus’ death be seen by others in the things we do, in the things we say, in the way we treat each other. May your ability to change the circumstances of our lives, the power you have to turn the life of one who is full of despair to one who is full of life, the power you have to give hope in the darkness night, be seen in the lives of us and those who come to you because of us.
V17
May your goodwill, the favour of the God who we serve as a caring ruler, be upon us all of our days. May you bless that which we do in response to you giving us that good will. May it not fade away like the lives of those on the earth, but may it stand before you in your eternal presence. May our response to your grace bring hope, love and life to those around us. May it speak truth into their lives. May it bring a lessening of the decay of sin. May it bring those around us closer to your presence.
