Pursuing a Heart of Wisdom

Psalm 90:1–6, 12 “1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. 3 You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!” 4 For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. 5 You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: 6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers….12 So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

With the small amount of time we spend on the earth, it is incredible how important we think we are in the grand scheme of things. As this same song declares in verse 10, “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

This song makes a significant point. Our days on God’s earth are very brief. The selfish desire that surfaces in our hearts to make much of ourselves is foolish. We want to put ourselves in the middle of everything and overestimate our value and the recognition we deserve, not only among people but also in the presence of God. I’m not saying we don’t have dignity and value, but it is because of God not because of us.

This psalm declares there is only one constant in the world and that is the eternal and unshakable God. It is His world. He calls the shots. He determines the rules. He asks no man for counsel. When God decides our days on His earth are complete God says, “Return [to the dust], O children of man!” As the writer of Hebrews says, “…it is appointed for man to die one, and after that comes the judgment…” (Hebrews 9:27). God appoints the day of death for us all, and one day He will say to all, “Return, O child of man!

Within the last few weeks, a dear couple in our church lost a precious daughter, eight and a half months along in her mother’s womb. Before she took a breath on her own, God said, “Return.” On Thanksgiving Day, my 88-year-old father died in his hometown because God said, “Return.” For each of us, death is an unpredictable reality. Life is fragile, and life is brief, even for those who live past 100. Only one thing is permanent and stable, and that is the one true eternal God of the Bible.

Everyone abides on earth by God’s design. Generations come, and generations go. In the temporal existence that God grants us, each one of us would do well to realize this is a God-centered world, not a man-centered world. Biblical truth reveals that the one true eternal God is good, defines all that is good and demands goodness from all those He created. All of us violate the standard of His goodness by personal sin and selfishness, and the only way we can be made right with God is by trusting the work of Jesus Christ. He is the perfect Son of God sent by the Father to pay the penalty for our sin by His death on the cross. It is the Holy Spirit who reveals this biblical truth to the hearts of people, graciously granting people wisdom.

May the Spirit of God reveal the saving truth of God through the work of His Son Jesus Christ, and help us to consider our days on earth in the light of God’s eternal reliability – i.e., wisdom!