Abide - Psalm 90

Podcast Transcript

Welcome Tyndale. Welcome to Abide, a journey through the Psalms. Psalm 90, A prayer of Moses.

I invite you to find a place that's quiet, where you can pull away from your daily routines. Whether it's sitting or lying down, allow your body to settle. Take a nice deep inhale, and exhale it all out. And again inhale, and exhale.

Today I read you some lyrics, from Whitney Houston (original lyrics by Civilla Martin), to start our meditation.

She writes, why should I feel discouraged? Why should the shadows come? Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven, heaven and home. When Jesus is my portion, my constant friend is He. Oh, His eye is on the sparrow and I know, I know, He watches over me.

His eye is on you. His eye is on me. And so as you begin to rest and settle in this moment, in this time of prayer, know that the Saviour is here, and his eyes are on you.

Our gratitude practice today has a lot of freedom in it, and I'll remind you that a gratitude practice isn't saying that we can't be unhappy or discouraged or sad or frustrated or lonely. A gratitude practice allows all of our feelings and our emotions and our thoughts to be there, but it also is escorting in other thoughts other places of our reality and it's highlighting some of those things.

So feel free to be yourself in these moments of gratitude, but also allow your spirit, allow the spirit that lives within you to guide and direct other things that might be happening around you in you and around you.

And so I'm going to give you one minute on the Clock for you to begin thinking about the things you are grateful for, and may they be really small, like heat in your house or electricity or water, which actually isn't very small at all. Or let it be a relationship, or a new thing you're reading, but let your mind soar into new places that maybe you overlooked.

And so, whether this is a time where you think of many things, or you might just stay with one thing and uncover it more deeply. And the minute of gratitude starts now.

Wonderful. Let's take a nice deep breath here in this gratitude moment, and exhale out just allowing the body to settle that much more to quiet as we prepare our hearts to read this Psalm, Psalm 90.

Today I will read it in sections, and we will ponder the sections slowly together.

Lord, you have been our dwelling-place
    throughout all generations.
Before the mountains were born
    or you brought forth the whole world,
    from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Lord, you are our dwelling place. You are our refuge. This is something that is always and eternally there for us, and yet we are limited in our understanding or in our ability to recognize this, so I invite you to take this time and allow God to surround you, to surround all the many things that you're thinking about. Then, just to envelope you almost like a big hug, to become your refuge and your dwelling, right as you are, and right where you are.

So imagine, this eternal dwelling place surrounding you. This very moment with all that you're holding. And rest there. And breathe there.

Knowing that any time in the day, you can drop anchor right where you are and remember this eternal dwelling. This dwelling that was provided for you before the mountains were formed, before the world was even brought forth. His eyes were on you.

I wonder if you can sense the compassion of God's arms around you, or just the mystery of all the knowledge that he has about you. And just his great desire to surround you in this very day.

Let's take a nice deep breath in this space.

You turn people back to dust,
    saying, ‘Return to dust, you mortals.’
A thousand years in your sight
    are like a day that has just gone by,
    or like a watch in the night.
Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death –
    they are like the new grass of the morning:
In the morning it springs up new,
    but by evening it is dry and withered.

The Psalmist compares us to dust, to grass. Things that are weak and vulnerable. And as you sit with Jesus in this dwelling place, this refuge place, I wonder if you can open to God these places in you that feel weak or vulnerable? Places in you that you might feel lost or blind or confused.

For your heavenly Father knows these things. His love is eternal, and our lives are temporary. How does it feel to have Jesus see these spaces in you that feel like dust, or grass that withers quickly?

He knows we are human, He knows re grow tired and weary. Allow all your weaknesses, vulnerabilities, questions, to rest here in this dwelling place, and be held here in these eternal arms.

We'll take a deep breath in here with all of our weaknesses, our vulnerabilities, our fragilities, and rest them in our eternal God.

We are consumed by your anger
    and terrified by your indignation.
You have set our iniquities before you,
    our secret sins in the light of your presence.

I invite you now just allow those little secret sins just to pour out, just to release out of you, and allow the gentle refuge, the gentle Saviour to gaze at you, to love you, and receive you as you are, for he knows you are dust.

Breathe in here, in the safety of God's love, in the midst of your secret sins.

All our days pass away under your wrath;
    we finish our years with a moan.
Our days may come to seventy years,
    or eighty, if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
    for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
If only we knew the power of your anger!
    Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.
Teach us to number our days,
    that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Oh Lord the Psalmist describes life, that we have maybe 70 years or 80 if best, and in those years there is sorrow and trouble. And the Psalmist reminds us, teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

I wonder, Lord if we were able to receive our fragility, our blindness, our weaknesses?

If we were able to see sorrows or troubles and realize these things are temporary. They come and they go. And at the same time beauty, and whispers of grace and love, and preciousness of each moment fills our days. What would it mean for us to have a deeper wisdom in our days, in our hours? I wonder if wisdom in our days has big arms to receive all of life, all of what the hours can bring. And with all those passing events and circumstances and feelings, many of which are out of our control, we would return and drop anchor to who our refuge is, and our dwelling place, our everlasting God.

Relent, LORD! How long will it be?
    Have compassion on your servants.
Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
    that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
    for as many years as we have seen trouble.
May your deeds be shown to your servants,
    your splendour to their children.
May the favour of the Lord our God rest on us;
    establish the work of our hands for us –
    yes, establish the work of our hands.

Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love.

Oh Lord, I confess there's a lot of longing and not a lot of being satisfied in life. So I pray that we would open our arms to your refuge, that there would be a freedom to be human, to be vulnerable, to make mistakes, and in that letting down, maybe this is a portal, a way in which we can be held, and satisfied more fully in you. As we share with you all of the complexities of our minds, of our hearts, of our hopes and our dreams, and we just set them down right there with you. You hear us, you see us. And just that love, and just that knowledge of your care for us, we can be satisfied.

God being held in you. Establish the work of our hands.

What will work look like for you today? I give you space to think about what this day will hold for you? What work will you be participating in? What are your tasks and your chores? What is your To Do List?

Oh Spirit would you establish the good work we desire to give back to you, to serve you and to make this place, this world, this earth, a better place. Help us not to just think about ourselves, but think about the generations that will come behind us. What kind of presence, what kind of legacy do we want to leave, today in the in these hours we have? Ones of compassion, a listening ear, a hand to serve, eyes of grace.

How can we embody your unfailing love into the world, into our families, our friendships our zoom calls?

Bless the work of our hands, God.

So that it might last ,and be worthy and worth more than just an act, but that it would sow seeds and water seeds. To glorify you, and to bring more under and in your refuge, into your dwelling. Where unfailing love is found, where satisfaction is found, where safety is found.

I'm going to read the Psalm in its entirety, where we’ll bring all of our ponderings together, noticing things that are eternal, noticing things that are temporary. Noticing God, and noticing humans. Allow these words to rest on you.

¹ Lord, you have been our dwelling-place
    throughout all generations.
² Before the mountains were born
    or you brought forth the whole world,
    from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
³ 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.
⁷ We are consumed by your anger
    and terrified by your indignation.
⁸ You have set our iniquities before you,
    our secret sins in the light of your presence.
⁹ All our days pass away under your wrath;
    we finish our years with a moan.
¹⁰ Our days may come to seventy years,
    or eighty, if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
    for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
¹¹ If only we knew the power of your anger!
    Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.
¹² Teach us to number our days,
    that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
¹³ Relent, LORD! How long will it be?
    Have compassion on your servants.
¹⁴ Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
    that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
¹⁵ Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
    for as many years as we have seen trouble.
¹⁶ May your deeds be shown to your servants,
    your splendour to their children.
¹⁷ May the favour of the Lord our God rest on us;
    establish the work of our hands for us –
    yes, establish the work of our hands.

Allow us to take another inhale of together these wonderful words, and exhale out.

Remember friends, His eye is on the Sparrow and I know, I know he watches over you, and watches over me. And so, we say together as a community, Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, as it is now, and as it ever shall be, World without end. Amen.

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