April 28

Psalms about Righteousness and Wickedness (Continued) - Psalms 76, 82, 84, 90, 92, 112, 115

The Moses memorial on Mt. Nebo.  It seems to suggest Moses staff or perhaps the serpent he set on the staff to save the people.  But instead of the serpent there is the outstretched arms to the Land of Promise.

"The length of our days is seventy years -- 

     or eighty years, if we have the strength;

yet their span is but trouble and sorrow,

     for they quickly pass, and we fly away."

"May the favor of the Lord our God rest up upon us;

     establish the work of our hands for us --

     yes, establish the work of our hands."

A prayer of Moses the man of God, Psalms 90:10, 17

This is such a bitter-sweet prayer.  When was it written?  At what stage in Moses' long life?  It seems to be a reflection on life as he feels it drawing to a close.  He doesn't seem to take much comfort here in all he has accomplished or all that God has accomplished through him.  Here is a great man of God praying that all that had been established by his hands would continue after he was gone.  Given the nature of the people he'd led through the wilderness, I'm sure he could foresee all that he'd been a part of passing away for nothing.  It must have been a terrible thought and one he sought to find comfort from in God.  He had journeyed so far only to wonder would his footsteps be erased?  It is also illustrates for me one of the traps of leadership.  How often during times of transition, leaders fear and assume that no one after them can do quite as well as you.  They will do things differently because the times will call for something different, for a Joshua and Samuel and David and ultimately God's son himself.  Moses began the journey.  Did he have any idea that his path would ultimately take Jesus to the cross?  

Was this prayer composed on the slops of Mt. Nebo as he walked with God for a peak into the Promised Land?  Or, perhaps better yet, was Moses looking into the land and the future and what lay ahead an answer to this prayer?  God wanted him to see where his life's work was headed.  And did he see more than the physical Promised Land?  Was he granted a look into the figurative Promised Land, too, and our future.  Lord knows.