Episode Transcript
Welcome Bonnie McClure to the Wake-Up Call as she continues the mini-series on Psalm 103. Bonnie is from Bremen, Georgia. She is married to Matthew, and mother of two sons ten and eight, and a dog named Kudzu and a cat named Rose. She’s a high school bookkeeper by day and a writer by calling. She writes regularly at the Pointed Arrow.
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Abba, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Abba, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Psalm 103 (NLT)
Let all that I am praise the LORD;
with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name.
Let all that I am praise the LORD;
may I never forget the good things he does for me.
He forgives all my sins
and heals all my diseases.
He redeems me from death
and crowns me with love and tender mercies.
He fills my life with good things.
My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!
The LORD gives righteousness
and justice to all who are treated unfairly.
He revealed his character to Moses
and his deeds to the people of Israel.
The LORD is compassionate and merciful,
slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.
He will not constantly accuse us,
nor remain angry forever.
He does not punish us for all our sins;
he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve.
For his unfailing love toward those who fear him
is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.
He has removed our sins as far from us
as the east is from the west.
The LORD is like a father to his children,
tender and compassionate to those who fear him.
For he knows how weak we are;
he remembers we are only dust.
Our days on earth are like grass;
like wildflowers, we bloom and die.
The wind blows, and we are gone—
as though we had never been here.
But the love of the LORD remains forever
with those who fear him.
His salvation extends to the children’s children
of those who are faithful to his covenant,
of those who obey his commandments!
The LORD has made the heavens his throne;
from there he rules over everything.
Praise the LORD, you angels,
you mighty ones who carry out his plans,
listening for each of his commands.
Yes, praise the LORD, you armies of angels
who serve him and do his will!
Praise the LORD, everything he has created,
everything in all his kingdom.
Let all that I am praise the LORD.
CONSIDER THIS
Psalm 103 has strong similarities to Ecclesiastes 3, “to everything there is a season.” While both poetic passages lament the temporary and fleeting nature of our lives here, by comparison, they pay homage to the profound permanence and everlasting nature of God.
Our days on earth are like grass;
like wildflowers, we bloom and die.
The wind blows, and we are gone—
as though we had never been here.
But the love of the LORD remains forever
with those who fear him.
As mortals, eternity is difficult for us to conceive. The final verse of "Amazing Grace" always makes clear to me how little I grasp the concept of eternity.
When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
bright shining as the sun,
we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise,
than when we first begun.
Just to imagine the passing of ten thousand years astonishes me. Then to imagine that even after having lived ten thousand years, my time remaining would be no less than when I first was born into eternity. This idea stifles all logic and limits beyond our comprehension.
And, yet, our eternity does not actually begin at some later date. Our eternal life begins here in the temporal world: “[For he has] set eternity in the human heart” (Ecc. 3:11).
Once we accept and awaken to Christ, our eternal life begins. From here on out, it will never end. This is the wonderful promise of the gospel. With the resurrection of Christ, death has lost its sting. Death becomes a mere doorway to pass through into the next phase of our eternal life with Christ.
I imagine it is a little like explaining to a teenager how their adult life will unfold. (If you are a teenager, just take my word for it.) As adults, looking back, though we wish there were things we knew when we were younger, we also recognize that adolescent capacity is limited and in our youth, there are some things that simply take time and experience to fully understand.
There will be things that will not make sense to us in this life. “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12).
There will be things here that seem unarguably top priority that will become utterly meaningless in the afterlife. He invites us to see beyond them now, even as we live in the midst of the material world. "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).
There will be things we develop here that are for purposes yet unknown. Consider the developing child in the womb. Though the en utero world is dark and watery, babies develop eyes for seeing light and nostrils for breathing air. In the context of the womb, these may seem strange, but these developments become quite essential once the placenta walls are breached.
The most important timeline that we become a part of is the one that begins within our hearts when we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Having been put on an immovable track to eternal salvation, we will forever live in the promise that we will have all we need and shed all that we don’t.
As Christians, we bridge these two worlds, the dim and the fully known, the seen and unseen, the temporal and the eternal, often living in the mystery between them. As wildflowers, we bloom and die but praise God, his love is the substance of our eternal life and animation, which remains forever.
THE PRAYER
Thank you, Lord, for eternity. That all that we see and experience here is not all that there is. Thank you that your spirit opens our eyes to become sensitive to your unseen movements. Like breath, like wind, like energy, our soul life with you is invisible but powerful and essential. Let us not become distracted by our temporal environment. Help us grasp how wide, long, high, and deep is your forever love while also surrendering our need to understand what is simply beyond our comprehension. Help us lean into trusting that your provision and sovereignty over our lives is endless.
