Focus

Let your soul take a moment of rest as you hear God’s word. Put your busy schedule, wandering mind, stressful thoughts, and burdened heart at the feet of the cross and open up to God’s voice as the Giver of Life tends your soul.

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Read

Psalm 90:1-8 (NRSV)

Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

You turn us back to dust,
and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”
For a thousand years in your sight
are like yesterday when it is past,
or like a watch in the night.

You sweep them away; they are like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning;
in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
in the evening it fades and withers.

For we are consumed by your anger;
by your wrath we are overwhelmed.
You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your countenance.

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Reflect

The only psalm attributed to Moses, Psalm 90 is widely used in funeral services. It contrasts the “everlasting to everlasting” of God to our mortal finitude. A thousand years in God’s sight is like yesterday. We are like grass that flourishes and fades in a single day.

Earlier this year significant parts of the United States experienced a full solar eclipse. Such wonders lead me to ponder the grandeur of God and God’s creation next to the speck that is me. Such awareness can lead to depression, or nihilism, if we are not careful. But what it usually evokes instead in the biblical writers is the awesome awareness that the God who made the heavens and the earth, the mountains and the seas, also cares for each of us with a love and a passion that is beyond our fathoming.

God has indeed been our dwelling place, and promises to be our dwelling place from “everlasting to everlasting.” That assurance is enough to make the most insignificant life of eternal worth.

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Pray

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. Your ways are not our ways; your thoughts are not our thoughts. You know our sin and yet your compassion never fails. We thank you for coming to us in Jesus, to demonstrate your love in the depths of our humanity, so that we might live in faith and hope; through Christ we pray. Amen.

Go with God.