Psalm 90 is extremely timely in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic in which thousands of people have died worldwide and more are yet to die. (This is on top of the yearly flu that has already killed many more.) Someday I will die and so will everyone reading this blog. Unless the Lord Jesus returns in our lifetime, we will all encounter “the grim reaper.” I may die before my 70 or 80 years have passed (10) or after; but I will surely die. There is no escape should Jesus tarry. Like all the “children of man,” we will “return to dust” (3), and my years will be “brought to an end” (7, 9). So what sustains me during my brief lifetime? Several factors:
1) Knowing right now I “live & move and have my being” in the sovereign, eternal God who has no time constraints (1-2; cf. Acts 17:28).
2) Knowing God is not bound by time but lives in eternity helps me have an eternal perspective (4). IOW, “I live with eternity’s values in view.” Regardless of how long I live, my years on this earth will “soon be gone” (10). But dwelling with God eternally awaits me.
3) I may have “toil & trouble” now, but someday I’ll “fly away” into eternal rest in the presence of the Lord Jesus (10). 2 Corinthians 5:8 promises that “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” This will indeed be “far better” (Philippians 1:23) than life on earth now with death threatening every day.
4) I am now being taught by God to “number [my] days,” and he gives “a heart of wisdom” to help me navigate through life following him. (That’s the wisest path forward.)
5. Being satisfied with God’s “steadfast love” or his covenant loyalty to all his promises “in the morning” and throughout the day fills me with joy and gladness all my days (14). When my heart is filled & satisfied with all that God is for me in Jesus Christ, there’s no room for worry, fear or fretting about things beyond my control.
6) God’s favor/beauty/pleasantness rests upon me & is sufficient for every day. So I will take one day at a time and even moment by moment while I have the time and pray that God will “establish the work of [my] hands” (17), that is, give some eternal significance to my brief labors as I’m passing through and pressing on.
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