A Prayer from the Hourglass

 

Friday, November 13, 2020

Lord, through all the generations you have been our home!  Before the mountains were born, before you gave birth to the earth and the world, from beginning to end, you are God.  You turn people back to dust, saying, “Return to dust, you mortals!”  For you, a thousand years are as a passing day, as brief as a few night hours.  You sweep people away like dreams that disappear.  They are like grass that springs up in the morning.  In the morning it blooms and flourishes, but by evening it is dry and withered.  We wither beneath your anger; we are overwhelmed by your fury.  You spread out our sins before you—our secret sins—and you see them all…. Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.  Psalm 90:1-8, 12

There is, contained in Moses’ prayer, one phrase which is the answer to every problem of humanity.  The phrase governs whether a prayer will be heard in Heaven and answered on earth.  It is the phrase that solves the riddle of who we are, and whether life has any meaning.  It can be uttered in the utmost sincerity or whispered as a lucky charm key word (albeit meaningless), or even in mockery (albeit quite dangerous)…but the phrase is as true as rain falls from the heavens, nonetheless. 

You are God

 Suspended in the passing of time, we can only dream of eternity; yet God has placed within us the understanding of mortality and how we are created beings, not Creator.  God has also placed within our understanding – each of us, admit it or not – that God is holy God, and we are not.  The chief problem of humanity is rejection of that truth; it forms the basis of either cooperating with God’s ways or, like Adam and Eve did, moving deeper into the forest of fig leaves to hide our nakedness.

There are all sorts of fig leaf activities to cover our nakedness of soul, and the nervousness of our psyche:

·       Intelligence – by assuming the knowledge will solve everything position, we bury our nakedness in study, science, and diplomas hung on the wall.  In that way we can point to what we “know” and be philosophically removed from that which escapes knowing. 

·       Insourcing – by counting on our “feelings” and intuition to feel better

·       Indulgence – by staying so busy with the readily-available dulling the senses tactics (parties, drugs, and whatever else appeals to our desires)

·       Insanity – burying our nakedness under a load of continual rituals (even the religious ones, political causes, or a cure for this or that disease) which lulls us into an existence of false hope that something will come along to make things okay. 

Have you ever felt just a little lost (or a lot) in all, or any, of that?

And then, the preacher brings up the final exam that’s coming…quickly, unexpectedly, and all that judgment stuff for getting it wrong. 

“Look, I will come as unexpectedly as a thief!  Blessed are all who are watching for me, who keep their clothing ready so they will not have to walk around naked and ashamed.”  Revelation 16:15

And you are more than aware you’re sitting in an hourglass, and the sand is running out.  You’re just hoping someone will turn the hourglass over to give you some more time to figure it all out.

Well, someONE has done better than that.  SomeONE has entered your hourglass of time and space to come alongside you and make it all better than okay.  He wants to make it okay between you and Him…for eternity!

For You Today

If you feel an uneasiness in your soul, deep within, the kind of questioning about the meaning of life, what’s at stake, and whether there is any hope at all…for you, or anyone else on this planet…there is a starting place for all the answers.  It is the prayer that begins like Moses prayed, Lord….You Are God!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title image, Pixabay.com   W   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

For other posts on Psalm 90 see:  Without Begining - Without Ending and  But Someday