Pastor Fredo Ramos: Psalm 90. Lord, throughout 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. Another translation says, from everlasting to everlasting, 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 fear. You spread out our sins before you, our secret sins, and you see them all. We live our lives beneath your wrath, ending our years with a groan. Seventy years are given to us, some even live to 80, but even the best years are filled with pain and trouble. Soon they disappear and we fly away.
Who can comprehend the power of your anger? Your wrath is as awesome as the fear you deserve. Verse 12, teach us to realize the brevity of life or teach us to number our days so that we may gain a heart of wisdom or so that we may grow in wisdom. Oh, Lord, come back to us. How long will you delay?
Take pity on your servants. Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives. Give us gladness in proportion to our former misery. Replace the evil years with good. Let us, your servants, see your work again.
Let our children see your glory, and may the Lord our God show us his approval and make our efforts successful. Yes, God, make our efforts successful. Another translation says, bless the work of our hands. Psalm 90 is a beautiful Psalm. In fact, by way of reflection, it's one of the oldest Psalms we have recorded in the book of Psalm.
In fact, many believe, that it was written by Moses. This is a Psalm of Moses, which would in fact make it the oldest Psalm we have. And it's a Psalm of Moses where he's praying and asking God to help him, as it says there in verse 12, number his days. In other words, consider the reality that life is short. You know, James says, our life is but a vapor, a mist, and then it kind of just disappears.
And this psalm opens with this kind of announcement that God forever to all people have been a has been a secure home. And so in light of all that kind of fades, you know, like our lives just pass quickly, God is eternal. You know, verse four says a thousand years are but a day. Right? So the way that we relate to time is different than how God relates to time.
And so as we come into our day today, facing all of our responsibilities, all of our relationships, your to do list, the grocery store, the stuff you got to clean, the people you got to host, the work you got to get done. There is always the sense in which we don't have enough time. And Moses through prayer is feeling this burden and he's turning it into a way in which he communes with God and says, Lord, help me to number my days so that what? So that I don't get depressed or I don't get so emotional or like live with kind of like a frantic attitude, but that I get wise. In other words, this prayer can teach us that there is a way for us to live today that is not frantic, but focused.
In other words, you know, you can believe that life is short because it is. But God is eternal. He is our home, which means we don't have to live with a sense of rush, but we can humbly live with a focused attention to the present to the now, knowing that our time is short. And so we want to, as the New Testament says, redeem the time. So in light of all that you have to face today, Jesus, we hear you inviting us now to respond in prayer.
And we ask you, Lord, you're the wise one. So help us to see what is truly a priority in our life today. Out of all the things we can do, there are some things you are calling us to do. And so God, we need your help today to decide what those things are. Jesus, we need your wisdom and guidance so that we can know where to say yes and where to say no because time is short.
Help us God to resist the temptation to give into things that simply don't matter. And would you help to redirect our devotion to the things that do matter in life. Because Jesus, if we were to ask you what time it is, you would simply tell us the time is now. And so we wanna act with a sense of focus today. We don't wanna live in a rush.
We don't wanna be frantic. We wanna be focused. And so Holy Spirit, make us people who are focused today. In Jesus name, amen.