Tuesday, February 7, 2023

 

Tuesday, February 7, 2023


Psalm 90

Genesis 24:22-49

Luke 4:16-30


So teach us to count our days, so that we will become wise.


Moses, the author of today’s Psalm, has some sobering words for us on the topic of ageing and death. If the topic weren’t so serious, we could be tempted to think he is being prone to melodrama.


Sin is the cause of ageing, according to this Psalm. Humans, in their sin, pop up and blow away like little blades of grass, in a cosmic instant, all because of God’s righteous indignation at our presumption. We get seventy years on this earth tops, eighty if we’re lucky (although in some cases, like Moses, we can find it stretched up to 120), and in God’s time frame, that is barely one shift on the night watch.


But Moses was a man of God. He understood that depressive nihilism is not the logical conclusion to the question of ageing and death. There are two important insights he left us with this Psalm, one explicit, the other an example for us to follow.


His explicit insight is this: now that we know that ageing and death is inevitable, and we know why, we can use that information for our spiritual growth. God will, if we ask Him, take this intellectual understanding from our head, and implant it in to our heart. A heartfelt appreciation for the limited time on earth that we have results in a life of wise reflection. No time is to be wasted; and especially not to be wasted on moaning about the inevitable. This is an ancient poem about the value of seizing the day.


The example Moses has left for us is how he concludes this Psalm. There is a complete shift from verse 10 to verse 13, from melancholy to wildly confident hope and assurance. He is certain that he can ask God to not only make the short span of a human life a time of joy and love, but to continue His blessing upon future generations.


It may seem unpleasant to our carnal minds on how this shift happens, which is found in verses 11 and 12. In these verses, we have been given permission to reflect on God’s wrath which is as great as the fear which is due Him (v. 11). Reflecting on this leads not to hopelessness and despair, but wisdom (v. 12). The result of this deep spiritual understanding of the true nature of things is that we are now bold enough to ask God for joy and love (v. 14). We would not ask for these things if we thought that God would not give them.


This flow of logic only works if God is true. Knowledge of God’s righteous wrath acting as the pathway to joy does not make sense any other way. And this connection is made all the clearer now that we know about the cross of Christ.


Moses has taken us onto holy ground with this Psalm. It is worth sitting down for a time and admiring the scenery.



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