Sept 8 - Psalm 90:10

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 90:10

Jesus got 33 years on earth.

Seventy is twice that.

But why do I think I deserve even half that?

I'm a pretty good guy ... by worldly standards, at least. But I'm still sinful and unclean. Why do I think I deserve anything but trouble and pain. 

In our world we act entitled. We may not say it allowed, but deep down we all think that we deserve health and comfort. We're entitled to it. (Americans especially feel comfortable and entitled ...) because if we don't get it, too many of us act like we have a right to be depressed ... even angry at God. 

This verse is a remedy to our entitlement ... a sad, unwelcome remedy. We deserve pain and punishment. There, I said it. But we surely don't like it. 

Without God to lift us above our brokenness, we're just animals. It's survival of the fittest. I fished a dead possum out of our rain barrel yesterday. It stunk. We may have sticky-sweet sentiments about our sticky-sweet grandma, but if there's nothing to lift her above this broken world, she and you and I are nothing more than dead possums, slowly drowning in stagnant rain barrels. Pain and punishment and death and decay is our lot. Quit acting entitled. There, I said it. But we surely don't like it. 

But ... here's the good news. We have a God who lifts us above our brokenness and pain. Who loves us, redeems us, and gives us worth. As it says in Jeremiah 29, we have a God who has a plan for us and wants to give us a hope and a future. He invites us into relationship and invites us to pray, as it says in verse 14, "Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love."

In Christ's Love,

a guy who is more

than a possum