Psalm 89:46–52
46 How long, Lord? wilt thou hide thyself for ever?
Shall thy wrath burn like fire?
47 Remember how short my time is:
Wherefore hast thou made all men in vain?
48 What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death?
Shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave? Selah.
49 Lord, where are thy former lovingkindnesses,
Which thou swarest unto David in thy truth?
50 Remember, Lord, the reproach of thy servants;
How I do bear in my bosom the reproach of all the mighty people;
51 Wherewith thine enemies have reproached, O Lord;
Wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of thine anointed.
52 Blessed be the Lord for evermore. Amen, and Amen.
I ain’t got much time left!
I’m not promised another year, day or minute but even if I am blessed to live a long life I passed the half way mark a few years back. There are accomplishments I had hoped that I would achieve that are off the table now but the remaining bucket list items had better be addressed.
I ain’t got much time left.
I can certainly relate to the Psalmist’s words.
Psalm 89:47 “Remember how short my time is…”
I understand that statement but I do have a question concerning the one being petitioned.
If the Psalmist was speaking to himself then it would be very understandable. We all need to remember the brevity of our lives so that we might maximize the minutes. When we start to stray from our loving Lord, when we are tempted to travel a path of sin, when we catch ourselves staying long in the insignificant distractions of life, it would be wise to look at the person in our mirror and tell the one staring at us, “Remember how short my time is”
The question I have with this passage is that Ethan doesn’t say those words to himself, he speaks them to his Creator, the one that made mankind.
Psalm 89:47 Remember how short my time is: Wherefore hast thou made all men in vain?
The psalmist reminds the Lord that he made man with an earthly expiration date and that his time is short, as though the Lord needed a reminder.
In the preceding verses the Psalmist is troubled that the promise God had given David of an unbroken line of royal descendants seems to be in jeopardy. He is pleading with God to hurry and prove himself faithful, after all, Ethan ain’t got much time left.
The truth of the matter, God didn’t need to hurry because unlike the Psalmist he doesn’t run short on time.
I do not know for sure who was on the throne when Ethan penned this Psalm. I know that Ethan was a contemporary of David but nobody really knows if this writer was the same guy.
I don’t know if this Ethan saw God’s faithfulness to answer this prayer and keep his promise in his lifetime, he may not have had enough time.
I do know that God was faithful to his promise.
The royal line of David was never broken. God’s own Son came into this world by way of a descendant of David’s womb. Jesus Christ is the true Son of David, he was born King and will never be dethroned.
The application to us is an important one.
We ain’t got much time left. We may not have enough time in this life to understand how our Lord will prove himself but we must understand that he will be faithful. He will fulfill every promise he has made, maybe we will see it in this life, maybe we will see it in the next. Our lives are but a very small piece of a massive puzzle that God has patiently been putting in place. We must attempt to be faithful in our time as our God has been and will remain throughout time.
I ain’t got much time left but I can trust him and serve him with what I have, will you do that with me?
Comments