Psalm 90
This psalm is attributed to Moses as a prayer. Scholars believe that this was likely written as a prayer during the wilderness wandering. Imagine Moses is seeing God judge people all around him and at some point, he would even receive his own judgment; being denied entry into the promised land.
The beginning of this psalm shows Moses’ grand view of God. He is the dwelling place of all generations as Moses says. God is the author of life and death. He was who He was even before He ever created. God is infinite and eternal. He is not bound by space and time as we are. How can 1,000 years to us be like a day in the past to God? He is outside of time. For us to have time there had to be a starting point. For there to be a starting point, there had to be an outside cause. That outside cause is Yahweh.
Moses then compares the grandeur of God to the simpleness of man. Read verse 10,
“The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”
Our lives are but a vapor as James would say in his epistle. When we realize how short life is, how just and amazing our God is, and how our iniquity is before His face; we should have a healthy fear of God. Thank you Jesus for nailing my public and private sin to that cross 2,000 years ago.
God teach us to number our days. Maybe when we learn to number our days, we will live with a, “If God will’s it” attitude (James 4:15). Maybe we will wake out of our slumber. Maybe our life would be marked by Romans 13:11-14 (NKJV),
“11And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. 12The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. 13Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. 14But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.”
When we really learn to number our days, God gives us some urgency. If you find out you are terminally ill, you try and do all that you can with your time left. What if I told you that your days are numbered, and it motivated you to do all that you could for God. It wouldn’t be so embarrassing to tell the grocery clerk that Jesus loves them and wants a relationship with them. Clinging to the job and keeping your mouth sealed from talking about Jesus doesn’t make much sense anymore. Let the shortness of your life motivate you to live for Jesus today, not later. Don’t keep pushing it off, get in the game.