As mentioned in the overview of the Psalms, we know Moses wrote one psalm, Psalm 90. While we don’t know when in his lifetime Moses wrote it, (although scholars always have guesses, but that’s a different subject for a different day) we do know that the writing reveals the importance (and brevity) of our time spent here on Earth, among other things.
Psalm 90 reads like so:
If you know anything about Moses, you know God has called him to lead through a lot of trials and tribulations. It’s not a surprise he calls the Lord his dwelling place in the first verse—he and the Israelites have been wandering through the desert for 40 years. He knows no home. For 40 long years, he has no roots.
Consider the word wandering, the term that’s used in most translations of the Bible in Numbers 32. It means to roam aimlessly from place to place. If you’re wondering around aimlessly, wouldn’t God be your one true dwelling place? Your one constant?
We move into the beloved verse, “from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.” Beginning, middle, and end, God is throughout. A lot of historically huge events happened in Moses’s lifetime. In the end, God is the timeless entity that binds everything together. There will never be a time in history (past, present, future) God has not touched. It’s comforting and gives much freedom to the Christian that clings to this truth.
The psalm shifts to God’s anger with a reminder of our iniquities and the brevity of life. God’s wrath is because he is a holy God with the supreme authority to judge our wickedness. Either righteous justice must occur, or a sacrifice to atone for our evil ways. The eternal nature of God is compared with our shortness of life.
This realization should lead us to ask for wisdom. If we number our days, may we gain a wise heart in learning to do so. If life is short, serving God should be on the forefront of our minds. How can we yearn for wisdom from God if we do not realize how short time our time on earth is and how weak we are as humans?
So: we must be willing to admit to our fragility. The laying down of pride opens so many doors to servanthood and godliness. With these verses of human brevity comes verses of the eternality of our God. It's a stark contrast there to magnify that we are not God. We never will be God. It's impossible for us to judge rightly because we ourselves are tainted. Only the one who is truly holy and blameless can judge righteously.
May we be wise enough to call unto the one who is worthy and everlasting.
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