Turn, O Lord, a Reflection on Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17

This psalm begins by voicing the recognition that God comes first--first as in importance and first chronologically. God is eternal; we are temporary. Temporary as grass. We may do well for a while, but soon we will wither and dry up.

Yet, we frail and temporary humans, have the Lord to support us and care for us.

The psalm gives us permission to address the Lord and words to use:"Turn, O Lord."

And the psalm also gives us permission to complain and words to use to voice that complaint: "How long?"

Some days our prayers are full of expressions of gratitude, and some days, they are full of expressions of need and despair. Either way, our prayers are full of the recognition that God is the source of our gifts and the source of our rescue.

But, we aren't to be passive about any of this. Having been created and having been saved over and over by God, we are to go to work leading the kind of life that God intended for us to have.

Let your work be manifest to your servants,
and your glorious power in their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and prosper for us the work of our hands--
O prosper the work of our hands!