Psalm 90:1–7
A Prayer of Moses the man of God.
1Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. 2Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. 3Thou turnest man to destruction; And sayest, Return, ye children of men. 4For a thousand years in thy sight Are but as yesterday when it is past, And as a watch in the night. 5Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: In the morning they are like grass which groweth up. 6In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; In the evening it is cut down, and withereth. 7For we are consumed by thine anger, And by thy wrath are we troubled.
Can you imagine the heartbreak of Moses? Can you put yourself in his place and consider his disappointment? Here is a man that left Egypt in hopes of a better home, a land of promise. He spent forty years living in a tent, setting it up and pulling it down, constantly moving from one sandy place to another. This man of God wandered in the wilderness for forty years dreaming of a land of milk and honey and then could only catch a glimpse from a mountaintop.
For Moses, not having the home of his dreams must have been devastating or was it delivering?
What do I mean?
The introduction tells us who wrote this Psalm.
"A Prayer of Moses the man of God."
Apparently, Moses was writing this Psalm from the perspective of old age and with a fuller understanding of the brevity of human life. He comes to comprehend how time does not limit the Creator like it does those he created.
Psalm 90:4 For a thousand years in thy sight Are but as yesterday when it is past, And as a watch in the night.
The people around him had died and even the places would change eventually being renovated with a new heaven and new earth, God however, would stay the same.
But what does this have to do with Moses never entering the promised land and not finding a permanent home? How would this fact be delivering rather than devastating?
Look at what he writes to start this Psalm.
Psalm 90:1 Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
The man who wandered in the wilderness, hoping for a permanent residence was forced to learn that God himself was the home for which he had hoped.
I remember the days that I would travel and preach away from home. I loved representing my Lord and serving him that way but frankly, I was so excited for the series of meetings to come to an end so that I could return. I would often say, “I can’t wait to get home” but what I imagined seeing on my return was never the place but the people. My home was my wife, my children, my parents that lived close by and my friends.
Home for me, was being near those that I loved.
This is what Moses came to understand, he would never find the longing of his heart in a place but only in a person, in closeness to his Lord.
Maybe we will never have a mansion, some may even never have a home to call their own but can still say like Moses,
“Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.”
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