Psalm 90
Song of Life
Recognizing life's brevity and God's eternity reorients us toward purposeful living and deeper trust. When we number our days wisely, we find meaning not in worldly comfort but in God's love and eternal perspective.
Introduction
Do you know one of the differences between youth and old age? When we are young, we expect to live forever and when we are older we know that life doesn’t last forever. The expectation of youth is that our entire life is in front of us. There is a sense of invincibility. There is the belief that nothing really bad can happen to us and if it does, we will somehow be spared. But with older age, we know that our days are coming to an end. We know that the aches and pains may not go away. And we know that what seemed endless is now temporary. We may be like the three men who were asked to think ahead to their funeral and to summarize what they think people might say about them as they are lying in the casket.
Maybe we have a hard time planning for our funeral. Maybe we don’t like to think about death. Maybe thinking about the end of our earthly life is just too morbid. Psalm 90 is not about morbidity. It is about learning to trust God and to think with wisdom in this world. But as readers we must not read this psalm with a negative outlook. The writer recognizes that life on this earth is temporary, but there is great delight in knowing that each day belongs to God. And when we face the reality of life—that is that it is temporary—then we find that our trust in God brings a clearer focus for living.
Perspective
The psalmist gives us a perspective of time which is hard to ignore. While we revel in the length of days, weeks, months, and years, the psalmist says that a thousand years is like a mere day to God or even like a watch in the night (3 hours). As swiftly as time passes for us, God’s view of time is completely different. The writer tells us in verse 2 that God is from everlasting to everlasting. God is eternal. Time has no meaning to one who is not bound by time. God doesn’t wear a watch. God doesn’t need a calendar or a Day-Timer. We do. We use those things in order to make appointments; to celebrate special days; to document the use of our time. But God needs nothing like this.
Verse 3 tells us that life is temporary. Time passes quickly. Death comes and we return to the dust. Someone has said that life is hard and then you die. That is such a negative view of life. Is this the view that God wants us to have? Life is temporary; death comes quickly; be miserable. Woody Allen tells a joke about two people who go into a restaurant. At the end of the meal, one says, “That food was terrible,” and the other says, “Yeah, it was, but the portions were small.” Is that the view of life we are to have? Life was hard, yeah, but it was short. This isn’t the psalmist’s view and neither is it God’s.
Because of the brevity of life then our perspective needs to change. We don’t have an unlimited amount of time in this world. So make it count. Life is too short to waste it on sin and pleasure which takes us from God. Life may be quick but it matters. Life may be over before we are ready, but we use the time God has given us to his glory. This is the perspective which the psalmist hastens to add in verse 12. “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” We want our lives to matter. We want our lives to count for something. We are not here to occupy space and use resources for our own benefits. We are here to do something of value. Not greatness as this world counts greatness, but value as God counts value. We are to number our days so that we may demonstrate God’s wisdom.
How do we do that? How do we count our days? There is indeed an idea of subtraction. We have to think about what we want to do with the years that we have left. At 20 we think life will last, but at 43 one has to think about the last 30–35 years of life left. Counting the days mustn’t result in wasting time, but in an appreciation for the brevity of life and a willingness to commit those days to God.
Purpose
Verses 1 and 2 remind us that having a perspective about eternity will help us to live life with greater appreciation and to seek meaning and purpose beyond the immediate. So where do we find meaning and purpose for life? Notice verse 14. The love of God is sufficient. The love of God gives meaning and purpose to our lives. God’s love leads us to expressions of joy and gladness. God’s love makes life worth living.
Notice verse 15. The psalmist asks for a balance between evil and good things in life. This seems odd to us. Our world is filled with every convenience. Discomfort can be medicated, ignored, or altered with a new purchase. We live in houses that are heated and cooled. McDonald’s is a staple. And paper cuts may be our greatest danger. Finding meaning and purpose in discomfort seems out of place in our time. The truth is we have little appreciation for the good things in our life because they are expected and taken for granted. Gone are the days when families brought the body of the deceased into their house to attend to the departed needs. Gone are the days when shortages meant sacrifice. The psalmist reminds us that there is meaning and purpose found in the evil things as are in the good. For it is in the evil things that we find our need for God. It is in the evil things that we are reminded that life is brief and that eternity is our focus. Gladness in the times of evil is not for the evil itself but because it reminds us of God’s power and activity as suggested in verse 16.
Notice verse 17. When we count our days, we ask for God to make our work matter. When God favors us, what we do and how we live matters. There are no visions of grandeur here. There is an appreciation that our faith in God matters. Our faith leads us to entrust the events of life to God. We want to find meaning and purpose in life. The psalmist says that such is found in a heart of wisdom. Meaning and purpose is found when we think in terms of eternity. Meaning and purpose is not found in our abilities but in the working and activity of God. Our faith in him brings meaning and purpose in what we do and in the events of life. There is no fatalism in this psalm. It isn’t about giving into the inevitability of death. It is recognizing that the brevity of life means we give what has been given to us back to the one who gave it.
What does all of this mean? It means that we live with an eye to eternity. We enjoy the here and now but we know that there is more to come. It means that we live for God. It means that we find purpose and meaning when we live for him. It means that we don’t waste our time and when we live for God our time is not wasted. Wisdom in living means that we commit ourselves to God knowing that the good and evil of this life will give way to an eternity with God.
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