Daily Devotion - 2/03/09

The Lord is with us!

Have you have had one of those days?  Of course you have.  We all have.  You know the day.  The one that starts with spilling your breakfast all over your new pants and ends with finding out that the dog has peed on the carpet.  The one with the speeding ticket and the quiz you forgot about and the bad news that either they're going to cut your hours at work or make you work a bunch more meaning you'll have either less time to study or not enough money for gas.  Or maybe it's worse than that.  It's the day you got hit on the way to a friend's and your car and the life you've built around using it is in shambles.  It's the day when you got the call saying someone you love has cancer and the outlook isn't very good.  It's the day when you were robbed or assaulted and all the security disappeared from your life.

It's the day when you really began to wonder if God was really good.  It's the day when you wondered if He cared.  It's the day when you reached the end of your rope and couldn't hang on and God didn't seem to catch you or someone you loved.  Maybe you haven't had THAT day but chances are you will.  Someday will be that day.  I think Psalm 90 was written by someone having that day.  Or that week.  Or that year.  

While I'll put the NIV's translation of the psalm at the end of this devotional, I found myself taken by the plain language of Eugene Peterson's version of it from the Message.  I think he captures the sense of the psalm which is attributed to Moses and must have been written by him after the nation of Israel was forced to wander in the wilderness for a generation due to their lack of faith when God had brought them to the Promised Land the first time.  His people have no home.  They have no rest.  They are aliens and strangers and exiles from every single place that they can think of.  I can see Moses, the man of God, in his tent one night looking out over the wilderness in the place where the nation of grumblers and complainers have settled for the season.  He can feel his frustration and his fatigue and even a bit of despair.

  God, it seems You've been our home forever; 
     long before the mountains were born, 
  Long before You brought earth itself to birth, 
     from "once upon a time" to "kingdom come"—You are God. 

  So don't return us to mud, saying, 
     "Back to where you came from!" 
  Patience! You've got all the time in the world—whether 
     a thousand years or a day, it's all the same to You. 
  Are we no more to you than a wispy dream, 
     no more than a blade of grass 
  That springs up gloriously with the rising sun 
     and is cut down without a second thought? 
  Your anger is far and away too much for us; 
     we're at the end of our rope. 
  You keep track of all our sins; every misdeed 
     since we were children is entered in your books. 
  All we can remember is that frown on your face. 
     Is that all we're ever going to get? 
  We live for seventy years or so 
     (with luck we might make it to eighty), 
  And what do we have to show for it? Trouble. 
     Toil and trouble and a marker in the graveyard. 
  Who can make sense of such rage, 
     such anger against the very ones who fear You?

Can you hear Moses' cry for mercy?  Now I wont you to remember that this is Moses.  This is the guy God picked to lead His people from exile; the guy who had witnessed all of God's power and might wielded to free His captive people.  This is the guy who had stood on Mt. Sinai in the presence of God and saw that He had claimed the nation of Israel as His own.  If there was anyone who might have been able to resist the very human tendency to doubt God's goodness it would have been Moses.  Yet there is his question to God, "Are we no more than a wispy dream, no more than a blade of grass that springs up gloriously with the rising sun and is cut down without a second thought?"  If there was anyone who might be immune to the despair of death, it would be the guy who had called forth manna from the sky and water from the rock and had followed the pillar of smoke and light through the parted sea.  Yet we can read his words, "We live for seventy years (eighty if we're lucky) and what do we have to show for it?  Trouble.  Toil and trouble and a marker in the graveyard."

Maybe you can relate to what Moses is saying here.  Maybe in the long, dark night of the soul you've asked God the same questions.  And when you did maybe you wondered if you had spoken blaspheme.  Maybe you've always been told that you're supposed to be a happy little Christian whose life is always blessed and who never questions the goodness of God.  And when you did ask these sorts of questions, the people around you looked at you with those horrified looks and began to wonder if you were really one of them.  And so the day got longer.  And the exile seemed deeper.  And God seemed more angry and farther away than He had ever been.

But the truth is that many,many people who try to follow God ask these kinds of questions when they have "those" days.  St. John of the Cross wrote whole books about his journey in the wilderness and his words are among the most beautiful and moving ever written by a follower of the Lord.  Even Christ asked these kinds of questions.

And know that even in the wilderness there is life and in the darkness there is hope.  For God is still God in the wilderness and He inhabits even the darkest places.  Read what Moses writes in the second half of the psalm.

  Oh! Teach us to live well! 
     Teach us to live wisely and well! 
  Come back, God—how long do we have to wait?— 
     and treat Your servants with kindness for a change. 
  Surprise us with love at daybreak; 
     then we'll skip and dance all the day long. 
  Make up for the bad times with some good times; 
     we've seen enough evil to last a lifetime. 
  Let Your servants see what you're best at— 
     the ways You rule and bless Your children. 
  And let the loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us, 
     confirming the work that we do. 
  Oh, yes. Affirm the work that we do!

Even with his questions and his despair, Moses still goes to God.  His prayer is that his people somehow find the wisdom to live well.  He still desires the love of God.  He still wants to dance the eternal dance of love.

Sometimes it's so easy to let our world define us; so easy to take in the evening news and the cable TV specials and splashy newspaper and internet headlines and see all the evil this world has and let that be the lens through which we interpret everything.  But the prayer of Moses here gives us an alternative.  He asks for the loveliness of God to rest on him and his people and on their work.  Think about that for a minute.  On "that" day, what if, even as we acknowledge our pain and frustration and despair, we were to ask for the beauty of the grace of God to come into our lives and the work we do?  What if we were to seek His peace, His wholeness, His shalom as we work through what has happened to us.  In a world filled with evil, what if we endeavored to live well (i.e. without dis-ease) in the work of our lives?  What then would we find on "that" day?

Grace and Peace.

In Him,

Chad

Psalm 90

A prayer of Moses the man of God.

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

You turn men back to dust, 
      saying, "Return to dust, O sons of men."

For a thousand years in Your sight 
      are like a day that has just gone by, 
      or like a watch in the night.

You sweep men away in the sleep of death; 
      they are like the new grass of the morning-

though in the morning it springs up new, 
      by evening it is dry and withered.

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.

All our days pass away under Your wrath; 
      we finish our years with a moan.

The length of our days is seventy years— 
      or eighty, if we have the strength; 
      yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, 
      for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

Who knows the power of Your anger? 
      For Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due You.

Teach us to number our days aright, 
      that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Relent, O 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 splendor to their children.

May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; 
      establish the work of our hands for us— 
      yes, establish the work of our hands.