How to Pray for Perspective
How many of us have the desire to pray like David in Psalm 39: "O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!" (Psalm 39:4). Why would we want to pray like this? The answer is, for perspective. We need to know that our lives are but a "few handbreadths." What's a handbreadth? Well, it’s a crude measurement using the width of your palm. That's between 3-4 inches for most of us. The point is, It's not big! Your lifespan even if you live to be 80, as David says, "is nothing before God," and "a mere breath" (v. 5). He goes on to say our lives are like "shadows" on the ground. Shadows don’t last because the earth never stops spinning. How can this perspective serve us well? Well, for one, David says, it will save us from the turmoil that comes when we try to heap up wealth, not knowing who will get it all when we die (v. 6). It's very easy to get locked into a money making mode of life and forget just how short life is and how impossible it is to take any of it with you. Before you know it your short stress-filled life is over and your family is arguing about what you've left them or not! On the other hand, Dear Ones, if we maintain the perspective not only that life is fleeting, but that life is lived before the face of God then He becomes the object of our hope (v. 7), the one we sin against and the one who can deliver us from our sins (v. 8), and the one who is preparing us for eternity by "consuming like a moth what is dear to us" (v. 11). Be thankful that God loves you enough to consume those things in your life that would cause you to lose perspective. Like David, we are mere sojourners passing through this life with God on our way to a better and lasting home. Jesus came into this world not merely to model the sojourner’s life for us and show us what a life lived before the face of God should look like, but to secure our resurrection and eternal life through his death on the cross. God did not create the first man Adam for a short, shadowy, life of amassing possessions on this earth, but for at eternal Kingdom! From the beginning God has placed eternity in our hearts (Ecc. 3:11). And at the cross Jesus secured our eternity, conquering sin and death.
