We deeply hope these heartfelt devotionals bring you God’s moment-by-moment grace. Will you help us keep them available? Your timely donation will be such an encouragement to us as we move into 2024!
October 05, 2020
by Pastor Chuck SwindollScriptures: Psalm 90:4–6, 10
SNAP A TELESCOPIC LENS ON your perspective for the next few minutes. Pull yourself up close enough to see the real you.
SNAP A TELESCOPIC LENS ON your perspective for the next few minutes. Pull
yourself up close enough to see the real you. Pore over your own pores.
Study what you see. Like a physician giving you a physical. Like an artist
painting your portrait. Like a biographer writing your story.
From the reflection in your mental mirror, pay close attention to your
life. Try your best to examine the inner "you" based on time. Time, that
elusive, slippery phantom which swims smoothly with the current, only
rarely coming up for air. Time, that haunting, endless melody which only
rarely sings a solo. Get a good look at yourself with your arm around time.
Makes a difference, doesn't it? It may be rather difficult.
Seems to me the only way we can carry out this project is to look in two
directions . . . back, then ahead. In many ways, what we see in our past
and visualize in our future determines how we view ourselves today . . .
right now. That depth-yielding third dimension we call "the present."
Psalm 90 is loaded with word-picture reminders of the brevity of life. Read
the psalmist's words carefully . . . they're like the words of the poet.
For you, a thousand years are as a passing day, as brief as a few night
hours. You sweep people away like dreams that disappear. They are like
grass that springs up in the morning. In the morning it blooms and
flourishes, but by evening it is dry and withered. . . . Seventy years are
given to us! Some even live to eighty. But even the best years are filled
with pain and trouble; soon they disappear, and we fly away.
PSALM 90:4–6, 10
Standing arm in arm with time brings a subtle, perhaps painful, reminder
that we aren't getting any younger. Walk with God. Make the most of your
day by pursuing Him, strolling humbly and joyfully by His side. Do what you
know must be done to place Christ at the center of everything. Yes . . .
everything. Leave the counting of years to Him. Let Him handle the length
while you pay attention to the depth.