Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered— how fleeting my life is. You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath. Psalms 39:4-5 NLT
Psalm 39 is a gritty, honest look at ourselves. It is a prayer of David expressing his awareness of his sin, mortality, and God’s judgment. It may seem negative and strange to focus on these dark, moody expressions of life itself. David so poetically writes about our existence as we pass through our time here on earth. ”We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing. We heap up wealth, not knowing who will spend it. And so, Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in you.” Wow, merely moving shadows? So deep. And, “Listen to my cries for help! Don’t ignore my tears. For I am your guest— a traveler passing through, as my ancestors were before me.”
It is these kinds of Psalms that helped me process a lot of angsty emotions as a young believer. David’s own words allowed me to learn to be completely open and honest before God in my prayers. So often deep, dark or even disturbing thoughts are considered to be wrong or inappropriate to even have, let alone talk about. David’s words do take us through some “Radical Candor” moments, but what would be the point of hiding or denying circumstances and feelings denying to process the full range of emotions in this life.
Some moments are so high that David seems to explode in praise to God – not here in 39 of course! Others, like this Psalm wind down to the depths, even focusing on how short our lives seem to be, “Each of us is but a breath.” BTW, this Psalm was inserted at the end of David’s life. It seems to reflect the perspective of someone who has lived long enough to realize how slow time moves when you’re young and how quickly the sand moves through the hourglass of life as we age. Time, perspectives and even emotions are so different moving through life. When young, time moves slow and emotions are raw and extreme. When old, time often slips trying to get traction of what happened today, yesterday or even this month! And our emotions seem to get foggy as we age, a little dulled and definitely delayed. “Wasn’t I just angry at God?” “What about? I do not know.” “I shall just forget about it and move on!” “Was I happy yesterday?” I seem to remember a few captivating moments, “I may have been!”
I can imagine David looking back over his life as he stretches out his much older, much wrinkled hand. He stares at it, remembering how it gripped the sling or sword back in the day. As he draws a line across his hand in his own mind, he writes, “yeah, that’s about the length of my life.”
Prayer
Dad,
Being human is such an interesting mystery, even a dilemma. Mix in a high level of inventive autonomy along with a broken sense of morality and purpose and we are a glorious MESS. We are basically an emotional swamp filled with beauty and bewilderment all swimming around together. It truly means we depend on you to sort us out and suss out the helpful emotions from the destructive ones. I’m not complaining, I think it’s amazing when I realize the scope of high highs down to the lowest of lows. Having emotions and safely being able to share them with you feels like it’s the only route to sanity. Thank you for knowing and loving the real me! Amen.