WONDER OF THE ETERNAL GOD

“Lord, You have been our dwelling place in ALL GENERATIONS” – Psalm 90:1

I cannot think of a better way to end the year than meditating on the WONDER of THE ETERNAL GOD: “Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God” (Psa.90:1-2). God preceded and transcends all generations. Nebuchadnezzar, the heathen king, having learnt the hard way, declared: “How great are His signs, and how mighty His wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion is from generation to generation” (Dan.4:3).

Psalm 90 juxtaposes the Eternal God against ephemeral Man: “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night” (v.4). God’s Time is eternal, “from everlasting to everlasting”! For us, Time is the River of Life; to God, Time is like a sigh: “For all our days have passed away in Your wrath; we finish our years LIKE A SIGH. The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away” (vv.9-10). Man’s entire lifespan is like a drop in the Ocean of Eternity! It is only through a vital connection to the Eternal God that our fleeting lives can take on meaning, significance and value.

Psalm 90 comprises four stanzas: God’s eternal nature (vv.1-2); Man’s ephemeral nature (vv.3-6); God’s wrath over man’s sin as the cause of man’s ephemerality (vv.7-11); and a prayer for God’s Mercy and Grace. Apart from God, life is futile because of its brevity and uncertainty. Even if one lives to be a thousand years old, it is like a day to God, or like a blink in the night! Think of all the history that has occurred in the past 1,000 years! Nigeria is a mere babe of 61. To God, a millennium is only a little blip on the horizon of time. We average 70 or 80 years and think we’re so great! Yet, none has the certainty of waking up tomorrow. Man’s helplessness in the face of death is like being swept “away like a flood” (v.5a).

Humanity is like the grass of the field, which sprouts promisingly in the morning, but after a day in the blistering desert sun, lies withered: “In the morning they are like grass which grows up: in the morning it flourishes and grows up; in the evening it is cut down and withers” (vv.5b-6). How soon the promise of youth is gone and life fades away! Human life on earth is short, feeble, frail, and uncertain. Nearly 150,000 people died each day around the world, according to 2017 data. That’s without factoring in the COVID-19 pandemic and current raging Omicron variant! Apart from being rightly related to God, life is futile. The reality of death ought to make people face the reality of their sin, and that we shall all stand to account to a holy God!

Hell is real! Heaven is real! Eternity is real! Yet, time is uncertain. So, while we must profusely appreciate the Eternal God for the opportunity to have made it through another chunk of time – 52 weeks, 365 days, 88760 hours, 525,600 minutes, 31,536,000 seconds – without our breath ceasing, we must set our hearts on the path of Wisdom. The Lord has taken us successfully through 2021 – our Year of God’s Words, Ways, and Works.

As we bestride the threshold of a New Year, these should be our prayers: “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom…Oh, satisfy us early with Your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days! ...Let Your work appear to Your servants, and Your glory to their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us; Yes, establish the work of our hands” (vv.12, 14, 16-17).