Psalm 90 – 92
Verse 90:4 tries to explain the idea of time and from God’s point of view:
For a thousand years in your sight
are but as yesterday when it is past,
or as a watch in the night.
I wonder if there were already skeptics about God having made the universe in 6 days. Time is a difficult concept to understand since we live in a defined finite world. Our world has limits placed on it. The road always ends, the air always runs out the higher you go and our lives will end. The concept of infinity is difficult to imagine even as an engineer. Think about space because unlike time that could be visualized. There is no “end” for space, if there was then what would be on the other side.
Time is a difficult concept since it is all relative. God looks at time differently since he has always been where we have limits. 1 day during the year to us is .27% of the year where 1000 years on a half-million years is .2%. Also, as we have shown that God as the observer traveling the speed of light, 16 billion years would seem like 6 days. This is the Theory of Relativity explained in simple terms a few thousand years before Einstein complicated it.
Verse 91:2 shows God is our protection:
I will say to the LORD, “My refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.”
This made me think about the sermon this past weekend, do you live in faith or fear. My answer was both! I tend to walk both lines. I believe in God, not by faith but fact. Everything I have researched and studied show that for the most part the events in the Bible appeared to have happened the way described. There are some events that still require faith in believing the story, but everything from the great flood to creation has evidence that it happened as described in the Bible.
So I have no problem living in “faith” that God exists, I live in fear because I question how hand’s on He is in our lives. I also see the holes I have dug and cannot imagine God helping. At the same time I look at my life and even when I royally mess up, God seems to working things out for me. I may feel some pain, but it’s far less than what could have been. The problem I have is falling back to God as my fortress in the middle of a struggle, although I have no evidence that He has case me aside. It’s just most of the messes I end up in are my own fault and fear what lesions God will have me learn.
Verse 92:7 touches on our envy of others:
that though the wicked sprout like grass
and all evildoers flourish,
they are doomed to destruction for ever;
This happens in each of our lives, we see bad people living in luxury. Everything they touch seems to succeed, while we struggle to make ends meet. Their grass is always greener, while ours in chewed to the nubs. The last of the 10 commandments deals with coveting your neighbor, be it their grass or their success. I read verses like this and wonder if we should even think that way! Think about it, this Psalm is giving us peace that the wicked will be doomed.
Should we not focus on helping the person to salvation and praying they come to know Christ, rather than being envious of their success? Granted this is OT talk where the Jewish people were the protected ones and it tends to turn the energy of envy to peace they “they will get theirs!” We need to focus on showing the light of God so they can flourish in faith and not evil.