October 12 | Bible in a Year: Isaiah 39–40; Colossians 4

Life Expectancy

A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by. Psalm 90:4

Psalm 90:4

READ Psalm 90:1–14

In 1990, French researchers had a computer problem: a data error when processing the age of Jeanne Calment. She was 115 years old, an age outside the parameters of the software program. The programmers had assumed no one could possibly live that long! In fact, Jeanne lived until the age of 122.

The psalmist writes, “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures” (Psalm 90:10). This is a figurative way of saying that whatever age we live to, even to the age of Jeanne Calment, our lives on earth are indeed limited. Our lifetimes are in the sovereign hands of a loving God (v. 5). In the spiritual realm, however, we’re reminded how God sees time: “A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by” (v. 4).

And in the person of Jesus Christ ‘life expectancy’ has been given a whole new meaning: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life” (John 3:36). “Has” is in the present tense: right now, in our current physical moment of trouble and tears, our future is blessed, and our lifespan is limitless.

In this we rejoice and with the psalmist pray, “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days” (Psalm 90:14).

By Kenneth Petersen

What worries do you have about your life and its limits? How are you comforted by the presence of Jesus?

Loving God, sometimes this life is hard, but—even so—I sing for joy in Your provision for me. Satisfy me today with Your unfailing love.

SCRIPTURE INSIGHT

Moses’ authorship of Psalm 90, based on the superscription, makes it the oldest of the psalms whose authorship we know. In addition to this psalm, Moses is ascribed authorship of the first five books of the Bible—the Pentateuch or Torah—making him the most prolific Old Testament writer. Some scholars believe that the background to the writing of this psalm may have been Israel’s failure at Kadesh Barnea (Numbers 13–14), where they rejected the land of promise despite Joshua and Caleb’s glowing account of the magnificent new homeland God had promised them. That rejection resulted in the forty years of wilderness wanderings the Israelites endured.