Eternity and Mortality

“I have a confession to make: I don’t struggle with prayer. I struggle with priorities.” Nathan W. Bingham

Moses prayed for his generation, desiring God’s blessing as they wandered in the wilderness. What if we follow Moses in his prayer, to seek God’s mercy for our generation in times of aimless wilderness and the challenges against authority? And to pray for the future generations after us?

Psalm 90 turns our attention not only to time and how quickly it passes, but invites our focus on the description of God as eternal and unchanging. He is our dwelling place, “in all generations; from ever-lasting to ever-lasting He is God.” Scripture speaks to help us understand how short our human life is; and how we are like a dream or like grass. “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.” ESV

In the midst of life in the wilderness, God has mercy on His people with His own presence. He is our Immanuel, God with us. He has promised to never leave or forsake us. According to His great mercy, we have been born again to a “living hope” through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:3. Our perspective on the word hope, leans toward circumstances which hold levels of uncertainty. Biblical hope is based upon certainty; a confident expectation. Do we have an eager expectation of biblical hope?

1 Peter 1:4 references our living hope, “to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Living hope refers to an undying and lasting character of this hope. In the midst of life’s absurdities and ambivalence, Moses remembers our eternal and great God of all hope. Throughout his prayer, guidance and wisdom speaks of God’s eternal character, purposes, promises, and plans.

Our living hope in Christ, steps into our ordinary day to press forward, to persevere through pain and endure trials and suffering. We are not left without hope. Yes, wounded and at times stunned by what we see and hear within ourselves and without in the world, yet we press on to trust and to keep ourselves in the perfect love of God. As Archer Butler writes, “…it’s the unchanged smile of an eternal Friend.”

In 2019, I invite you to join me in the prayer of Moses, from Psalm 90:

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom; satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all of our days. Let the favor of the Lord be upon us; and establish the work of our hands; yes establish the work of our hands.”

God gives eternal significance to the hearts and hands that serve Him. With confidence in a living hope through Christ, let’s press on and take hold of God’s mercy to our souls in these concerning times. Like Moses, we are dependent people upon God’s blessings. May His kingdom come.