Psalms 90
Outline
1-2 | God’s eternal existence and Creator nature
3-6 | God exists outside of time
7-12 | Man’s life is short compared to God’s eternal nature
13-17 | A prayer for God’s continued lovingkindness
Reflections
If we were to setup a string representing the ~6,000 years that the world has been in existence1, and then placed a mark on it that represented a single person’s lifetime, it would seem miniscule when looking at the full length of the string. Yet we, because it is our life, place a great deal of emphasis on our short lifetime compared to the rest of time, or even eternity for that matter.
To consider this even further, take a line of infinite length, or eternity, and place a mark of 70-80 inches on this line (one inch equally a year of life), it would seem immeasurably small, even to the point of being non-visible. Not invisible but non-visible. This is important to remember. Why? Because while our time on earth is small compared to eternity, it is not insignificant. We shouldn’t take it for granted. I don’t know about you, but I have to admit that I wasted some of my best days / years while pursuing things that weren’t eternal in nature.
Even though God exists outside of time, as the psalmist so eloquently describes, our lifetime is not unimportant in His eyes. In fact, He has declared that all men will give an account of their lives at its end and be judged accordingly.2 There is far more to this than can be written about here, but for now reflect on the words of Jesus from John 3 and Matthew 25.
John 3:16-21 NASB “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17 “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 18 “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 “But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”
Matthew 25:31-46 NASB “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 “All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. 34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 ‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ 41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44 “Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ 45 “Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
No matter what you do in life in terms of vocation, do it in a way that people will know that you live to honor God in all you do, making sure that you reach out to those in need or are disenfranchised from the rest of society.
Lord God, You have blessed us with so much and for that we are truly thankful. We pray that Your Spirit will strengthen and embolden us to live to honor You in all that we say and do and to Your glory. Forgive us in the times when we struggle and fall short. May Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
1 – “Biblical Age of the Earth.” The Institute for Creation Research. www.icr.org/biblical-age.
2 – Nave, Orville J. Nave’s Topical Bible, A Digest of the Holy Scriptures. Public Domain; e-Sword. — see article on Judgment as a good starting point for further study.
GotQuestions.org has additional articles that will help understand this topic.
Psalms_090_RL_GodsEternalNatureAndMansShortLifespan.pdf
