Wednesday 12th April
Read Psalm 90:3-6
“You turn people back to dust,
saying, ‘Return to dust, you mortals.’
4 A thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
5 Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death –
they are like the new grass of the morning:
6 In the morning it springs up new,
but by evening it is dry and withered.” (NIVUK)
The imagery the psalmist uses swaps and changes rapidly, emphasising just how fleeting life is. He moves from dust, to time, to floods to grass in line after line. Then he combines two of the images together – grass and time – and in doing so captures the transient nature of a human life fully.
From delight at dawn to desiccation and death in a day.
There are at least two ways to respond to this ephemeral life. We can ponder our mortality and long for renewal (v5b, 6a) from above (cf 1 Peter 1:23-25). Or you can be pragmatic like Jesus and follow the logic of our life’s brevity through to its conclusion.
“‘And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin.29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these.30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith?31 So do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?”32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:28-34) (NIVUK)
If our days are so short, and we don’t even know if we will have a tomorrow, then why do we worry so much? Despite our brief lives it is clear from creation that he still cares. Psalm 90: a divine prescription for anxiety.
