A Prayer Written After Many Funerals
“LORD, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.”Psalm 90:1–2 (KJV)
Psalm 90 is titled a prayer of Moses the man of God. Think about when he might have written it. He had spent forty years in the wilderness watching a whole generation die, one funeral after another, and he knew he wouldn’t enter the land himself.
Out of that grief comes a prayer that begins, not with the brevity of life, but with God. “LORD, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.”
Generations come and go. God doesn’t. He is the home that outlasts every graveside.
And Moses ends by asking for something surprising: “establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.” Life is short, but it isn’t meaningless. Ask God to make what you do with your days last.
Read it yourself
Read all of Psalm 90. List what Moses asks God for in verses 12 to 17.
What would it mean for God, not your circumstances, to be your dwelling place?
Lord, you are my dwelling place. My days are short; establish the work of my hands. Amen.