Nothing lasts. Have you noticed that? You buy a new car and a week later you get a scratch or a tiny crack in the windshield.
Your favorite team lands that coveted free agent. A year later, he wants out.
You start a new job. You’re excited for the change. Then COVID-19 hits, and you’re working remotely for a supervisor you met once and co-workers you can only see online.
Beyond that, there are more serious realities of aging and death.
Nothing lasts. The world, and all it contains, is impermanent. And as creatures of this world, so are we.
Moses says in Psa 90:10 that our life is but 70 years, 80 if we have strength. Better hygiene, nutrition, and medicine has prolonged that to even 90 or 100 (in blue zones like Loma Linda!). But in the end, the pride of man “is but labor and sorrow; For soon it is gone and we fly away” (v. 10).
In the midst of all this transitoriness, all this fading away, how should we see our lives? Moses tells us in v. 12: we need to ask God to teach us to number our days so that we may present to Him a heart of wisdom. In light of the brevity of life and the eternity that awaits us in God’s presence, we need to see and evaluate our lives appropriately. We need to let eternity remind us what’s actually valuable, what actually should be our treasure. It should be God. It should be Christ. It should be the Holy Spirit.
Apart from Him, nothing we do or gain here on earth lasts; nothing matters. Everything will be swept away (Psa 90:5). But in Christ, our good works are not in vain, so we should abound in them (1 Cor 15:58).
And we should go to God and say, “You are the everlasting God, who doesn’t change, and You are my dwlling place” (Psa 90:1). When we believe that, we’re safe; we’re not anxious; we’re at peace. We know who is in control over all this flux. And we know where we’re headed – straight into His presence, where His lovingkindness will wash over us for all eternity.
