Our Wonderful And Frightening God

Psalm 90:1-9

A prayer of Moses, the man of God.

1Lord, through all the generations

you have been our home!

2Before the mountains were created,

before you made the earth and the world,

you are God, without beginning or end.

3You turn people back to dust, saying,

“Return to dust!”

4For you, a thousand years are as yesterday!

They are like a few hours!

5You sweep people away like dreams that disappear

or like grass that springs up in the morning.

6In the morning it blooms and flourishes,

but by evening it is dry and withered.

7We wither beneath your anger;

we are overwhelmed by your fury.

8You spread out our sins before you—

our secret sins—and you see them all.

9We live our lives beneath your wrath.

We end our lives with a groan.

In 1865 several friends from England climbed the Matterhorn, the great Swiss Alp that had not yet been scaled. They reached the top, but four men lost their footing on the way down and fell to their deaths. One of these was a minister, the Reverend Charles Hudson. When his body was recovered by the others in the expedition, a prayer book was found in his pocket. Someone suggested that a funeral service be held there.

So another minister, named McCormick, used Hudson’s prayer book to read Psalm 90 and conduct a brief service. “I am persuaded,” McCormick said of his dead friend, “that his soul was filled with joy and gratitude as he stood where no human being had ever stood before and gazed from a new point of view on the great Creator’s works.”

McCormick found Psalm 90 “singularly appropriate” to the occasion. In that moment God seemed both wonderful and frightening, capable of creating great beauty and of snatching a life. The fleeting quality of human life is a major theme of this psalm. We can be swept away “like dreams that disappear.” But our God exists eternally, long before the most majestic mountains were formed and long after they crumble. If the Lord is not our home, what kind of security do we have?

Before the hills in order stood,

Or earth received her frame,

From everlasting thou art God,

To endless years the same.

ISAAC WATTS

A Word on Words

Some Jewish rabbis translate verse 3 as “Return unto me, Judge of the human spirit.”

Bible Networking

With God time is nothing. Compare verse 4 of this psalm with 2 Peter 3:8.