ESTABLISH THE WORK OF OUR HANDS, O LORD

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In Christ, Mark

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Relent, Lord! How long will it be? Have compassion on Your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with Your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as You have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble. May Your deeds be shown to Your servants, Your splendor to their children.

May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us — yes, establish the work of our hands.

                                                                                                

Psalm 90:13-17

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Chris Rice is one of the more creative songwriters in Christian music. Several years ago, he wrote a great song called “Life Means So Much” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciYQmlh4Xe4) which contains the following lyrics:

Every day is a bank account
And time is our currency
So…nobody's rich, nobody's poor
We get 24 hours each

So how are you gonna spend
Will you invest, or squander
Try to get ahead
Or help someone who's under

Teach us to count the days
Teach us to make the days count
Lead us in better ways
‘Cause somehow our souls forgot
Life means so much

Chris speaks to the value of every day and the time we’re all blessed with. The song ends with the following two lines repeated:

Every day is a gift you've been given
Make the most of the time every minute you're living

So how are we doing to this end? Are we making our days count? Are we making the most of the gift we’ve given, making the most of every minute we’re living?

These are questions we need to ponder as we consider our Christian walk and the service the Lord expects us to perform.

The words of the psalmist as the 90th Psalm ends seem to be a precursor to the lyrics Chris Rice wrote more than 2,000 years later. The passage reads as follows:

Relent, Lord! How long will it be? Have compassion on Your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with Your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as You have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble. May Your deeds be shown to Your servants, Your splendor to their children.

May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us — yes, establish the work of our hands.

These words speak volumes as to how we need to approach every day and the time currency given to all of us by God.

First, we need to give thanks every morning that the Lord allows us to awake and take in breath. In fact, we should look at each breath as a gift of God’s grace for none of us would live without that breath. Counting each one as a blessing reminds us that every day is a gift that we’ve been given because every breath (and add every heartbeat) is a constant sign of how God blesses us with life itself. His grace in light of our sinful disposition shows us His love and compassion.

And so with each day, as we experience the mercies of the Lord that are new every morning (Lamentations 3:23 NKJV), we should be satisfied and in a spirit of rejoicing and gladness. The Lord has brought us into a new day full of fresh opportunities to serve Him and others. With this, we should enter into fulfilling God’s will with excitement as He reveals His splendor to us – and you can’t help but be in the midst of the Lord’s splendor when you are committed to His purposes.

So you have awaked, given thanks for God’s grace and love, and adopted a spirit of praise and gladness. Now you’re ready to go to work.

Look again at the final words of this psalm:

May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us — yes, establish the work of our hands.

The significant beauty of each day isn’t in what we do on our own volition but rather what we do in obedient response to what the Lord calls us to do every day. This is why we should be praying for Him to establish the work of our hands, to offer ourselves to Him as living sacrifices, available for Him to use us in whatever way He sees fit. When we do this, then we will realize the full value of the days we are given as the Lord teaches us to make our days count, every one of them.

Let us make our opening words each morning match the closing words of this psalm,” Establish the work of our hands, O Lord,” because truly, life does mean so much, now and forever.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

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