Satisfied with the Unknown

So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Return, O LORD! How long?
Have pity on your servants!
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.
Let your work be shown to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!

Life is hard and then we die is all there is when we don't keep the end in view. While training for a race the finish line has to be in our mind all the time or we would quit. Life is a marathon, or a pilgrimage, toward Heaven and we must keep the finish line and the Prize in front of us at all times, or we may get distracted and not finish.

One of the hinderances to our running well is that we are satisfied with lots of things along the way that are really not that satisfying. Each one of us have things that easily beset us; temptations that distract one person might not distract another at all. Just like some people really crave sushi while others can't stand it. Notice the second verse of this passage,
"Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days."

If everything in my life were taken away leaving only God's love for me, would that be enough? Moses, who wrote Psalm 90, lived to be 120. Moses saw a lot of Who God is and what God could do in those 120 years. Moses "had it all" at one time but didn't consider the pleasures of Pharaoh's house better than what God had for him. Moses could see that the confortable life in Egypt was not better than being where God wanted His people. Moses didn't get to go to the promised land and yet the desert with God was better than Egypt w/o.

As we close out 2011 many things have happened that are hard and yet they are good; we have been afflicted. Leaving Egypt was hard for the Israelites and yet it was not only good but it was best. Leaving the familiar for the unfamiliar is hard. Leaving the known for the unknown is not what we generally want to do. But the unfamiliar and unknown with God alone is far better than the known and comfortable with God as an accessory to our lives.

We must number our days, to gain a heart of wisdom so we can be satisfied with his steadfast love- even if that is all we have. In the end, "ALL" of God is far more than than all of the world anyway, we just need to remind ourselves and those around us of this truth.