A Puff Of Air

Psalm 62:8-12

8O my people, trust in him at all times.

Pour out your heart to him,

for God is our refuge.

Interlude

9From the greatest to the lowliest—

all are nothing in his sight.

If you weigh them on the scales,

they are lighter than a puff of air.

10Don’t try to get rich

by extortion or robbery.

And if your wealth increases,

don’t make it the center of your life.

11God has spoken plainly,

and I have heard it many times:

Power, O God, belongs to you;

12unfailing love, O Lord, is yours.

Surely you judge all people

according to what they have done.

As you flip through the book of Ecclesiastes, you can almost hear the sighs of the author, who calls himself “the Teacher.” The Teacher had it all: money, success, wisdom, fame. But he still was not truly satisfied. All of those pursuits proved meaningless and empty in themselves, “like chasing the wind.”

The phrase translated “meaningless” or “vanity” carries a root meaning of “breath” in the original Hebrew. All your earthly endeavors, he says, are just “hot air.”

We see this same word here in Psalm 62:9 with the same basic theme. People put a lot of stock in who’s rich and who’s poor, who’s famous and who’s ordinary. But from God’s perspective, these people are about as weighty as a breath, a “puff of air.” All their wealth, fame, and power does not add one ounce to their weight in the eternal scheme of things. God is looking for us to trust him instead (verse 8) and to live our life in a way that pleases him (verse 12).

So don’t invest in hot air; instead, “trust in him at all times” and reap an eternal reward of immeasurable weight.

Simply trusting ev’ry day,

Trusting through a stormy way;

Even when my faith is small,

Trusting Jesus—that is all.

EDGAR PAGE STITES

Notable Quotable

“A feather has some weight on the scale [verse 9], vanity has none, and creative confidence has less than that. Yet such is the universal fascination that mankind prefer an arm of flesh to the power of the invisible but almighty Creator.”

CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON

Thought to Ponder

When the psalmist says in verse 9 that all people, whether considered great or lowly, amount to only a “puff of air,” what does he mean?