You carry them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which grows up. In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew; toward evening it fades and withers away. (Psalm 90:5-6)
At times, this prescient prayer by the servant of the Living God – Moses – sounds like the Book of Ecclesiastes, which was written by the repentant “preacher” King Solomon. In the previous verse of the prayer, Moses spoke of the eternal self-existent attitude of Almighty God and His firm control over Time. Here, Moses prayer shows the quality of his close relationship with the Creator – Yahweh.
Moses, under the Authority of the Spirit, basically speaks stark truth about the uncertain nature of every breath of life in these two verses. Solomon goes into a unique discourse on death in Ecclesiastes 9:1-10. In both cases – Moses and Solomon – we confirm and it is affirmed that death is no respecter or persons. It affects the wealth and the poor; the good and the bad; the righteous and the rest of this world.
It basically comes down to the “DASH” on our tombstone. This marking, which separates the year of our birth on the tombstone to the year of our departure from mortal life, is our entire life time. The Tombstone is the record, our legacy is how we built that record. Solomon, the preacher exhorts to live well. As he writes in Ecclesiastes 9, we must live well with what God has given us : from our wives or spouses to the food we eat. He says we should live the best we can since there is not enjoyment in the grave. Since the New Testament though, written 1000 years after Solomon wrote this, we know there IS joy in the grave. We know this because of the Gospel - the birth, life, Death, Sacrifice and Payment on the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus Christ the Only Son of God. The Apostle Paul tells us in Philippians 1:21 that to live is Christ BUT to die is gain!
The Savior, Jesus Himself – Who met with Moses on Mt. Sinai and travelled with Him in the desert for forty years, said in Matthew 6:30 as He speaks about the splendor and majesty of the beautiful flowers of the field and Solomon’s fine expensive royal garments. Jesus said "Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?".
Jesus speaks what the Spirit, who gave this prayer to Moses speaks. It syncs perfectly with Moses' inspired verses above in Psalm 90:5-6, where the bottom line from the Full Counsel of Scripture is this - behold what seems beautiful and oh-so-good and perfect today, because it will be gone by tomorrow, like the sands of time. This life is fleeting and the only thing left behind is that dash on the tombstone and a legacy with our families and the work we may have done. This dash could be empty vanity of vanities or it can be fruitful and full of divine work for the Lord, through those we have helped along the way.
What is your journey going to be classified as, when you have arrived at your destination...at the end? Would it be carried away like a flood and cast into the sea with no trace of having lived or would life happen so wonderfully in the lives transformed in our wake, because we have served Jesus Christ and His church and people here on earth....giving it our all? The choice is free and all yours.
