I strolled out of the study this afternoon having read Psalm 90 a second or third time and thought: ’I’ve been pretty busy today but I don’t have a whole lot to show for it’.
As I grabbed a water, that thought collided with Psalm 90. Surely it’s one of the two dominant themes of this Psalm: Is the work of our hands sufficient? Is it satisfying? Is it…enough?
My bible says Psalm 90 was written by Moses, but it sounds a whole lot like Solomon in Ecclesiastes to me. The ephemeral nature of life, the fear of futility and the awareness of God’s sovereignty (perhaps in a fateful rather than fearful way).
These are the thoughts of a dying man looking over his life and hoping it was worthwhile; hoping that his short time on earth was meaningful. Of the 17 verses of Psalm 90, 16 are addressed to God. Verse 17 though turns to the congregation/nation/crowd and says hopefully: ‘Please bless what we’re up to Lord, please make it worthwhile, please make it for Your glory’.
This last verse moves from the divine to the human, yet it’s not without the divine. We pray that the Father’s Kingdom and will would be established on earth through our words, thoughts and actions. This last verse combines the human with the divine to say ‘Please God, may our work establish Your work’.
In translating Ephesians 5, Eugene Peterson refers to futile work as ‘mere busywork’. Essentially, work devoid of meaning. Our search for meaning may be anaesthetised by activity, but it is satisfied by bringing glory to the One who created us.
With this thought, it shouldn’t surprise us to find worthwhile pursuits, causes and passions that bring us pleasure and from which we find satisfaction. It shouldn’t surprise us either that these often resonate with the character of a Holy God. It’s this intersection of the human and divine that changes mere busywork into meaningful work – they reverberate beyond us and touch the divine.
I said there were two themes I could see. Just briefly, there’s a bottom line that comes right at the top: only God is God, always has been, always will be. From everlasting to everlasting, God is is God. It’s His call, His work, His say, His sovereignty that is over all and through all. And there’s no doubt that an unfolding revelation of this causes us all to declare: ‘establish the work of our hands!’