We live in an anxious, out-of-time world. We never seem to have enough time, especially for the truly important things…faith, family, friends, personal renewal. Over the years, the only Psalm written by Moses has encouraged and challenged me. His reflections offer much-needed perspective to our personal and public lives.

Psalm 90 is written at the end of Moses’ life. Thirty-eight years before, he walked out of Egypt with an estimated 1.2 million people in The Exodus on the way to the Promised Land. But what should have been a seven-day journey turned into nearly four decades of wandering in a desert wilderness due to the people’s rebellion and unbelief toward God. What began as a glorious deliverance, worth all the front-page news of that day, ended up becoming the miserable and thankless job of leading an obstinate, ungrateful, and complaining people for an entire generation.

For each of those thirty-eight years, Moses lived with the painful realization that he was leading his generation in circles, waiting for them to die. (What a metaphor for the way so many people exist.) Now, except for two families, the first generation is gone. Moses himself is at the end. As he stands before their children, he poignantly passes on the lessons of that painful saga as his last recorded words. The words are his prayer, backed by profound perspective and the calculations developed in his years of leadership. It is his hope that the lessons will create wisdom and faith in this new generation.

He begins by listing a series of hard realities that we must all face if we are to live wisely.

The Man, Moses

The heading for the Psalm simply states: “A prayer of Moses the man of God.” But this phrase lays out two very important aspects of leadership that are not covered by any of the gurus of leadership. The first is that Moses was a man of prayer. This Psalm was not just a speech that he gave to the assembled masses, but it was his prayer to God. We must remember in our leadership to first speak to God on behalf of others before we speak to the people. Our leadership influence flows out of that dialogue first.

Second, it must be noted that Moses is called “the man of God.” He is not called a “man of action and influence” or a “man of vision” but “the man of God.” A true leader is God’s man first and foremost. He is not focused on his own vision or agenda. God has his full attention and heart.

The Reality of God – Psalm 90:1-2

Lord, you have been our dwelling place
throughout all generations.
2 Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Moses begins by reminding us of the ultimate reality, the reality of an everlasting God. A.W. Tozer said that what comes to mind when you think about God is most important thing about you (The Knowledge of the Holy). Moses knew God, not as a theological or philosophical construct, but as a living reality – the reality that anchored his life. He saw God as eternal and as the Creator, but he also saw the personal God — his refuge and dwelling place.

One of the reasons that we live such bifurcated lives is that we live too much with God as a theological idea rather than the living reality more real than the physical world, which has a beginning and an end.

As people, as leaders, do we live with the sharp awareness of The Ultimate Reality?

The Reality of Death – Psalm 90:3

You turn men back to dust,
saying, "Return to dust, O sons of men."

I’ve heard it said that the great denial of the Victorian era was sex, but that the great denial of our era is death. Especially in our Western culture, whole industries prosper to deny the effects of aging. It’s a major driver of consumer behavior. But in spite of the “cover-up”, death is real. It is a fact that must be faced if we are to live well.

Let’s look at Moses’ leadership tenure for a moment. During the time he presided as the leader, except for two families, all of the 1,200,000 people that left Egypt with him died. If we apply simple math to this, 87 people died each day of his tenure, 3 to 4 people every hour. There was not a moment in his leadership that he didn’t hear the cries and mourning of those confronting death. To be sure, there were the sounds of babies being born, birthdays being celebrated, and marriages vows being taken…the sounds of life. But piercing through all that music was the sharp notes of life coming to an end.

What does a person, a leader do with such an experience and perspective?

The denial of the reality of God keeps us from grasping the fact that our lives can tap into eternity. Understanding the reality of God helps us live in a way that transcends the dust of this world. Because God is eternal, personal and good, life has purpose, meaning and value. Without God, randomness and chance rule. How it must have caused Moses to ache with the realization that these people that God had chosen and delivered lived out such a meaningless experience, just wandering toward their own funerals, rather than experiencing the joy and purpose and fruitfulness that they could have had.

The denial of the reality of death keeps us from understanding the preciousness of the life. When we understand that we all live with a dead-line, we live more fully. We treasure life and seek to live it well. How Moses must have ached as he counted each hour the passing of another life expended in self-inflicted futility.

Do you live each moment in light of the reality of God? Do you live each day with an acute awareness that there is a dead-line for your life? How is it making a difference in how you live and lead and serve and work?

Take time to read and reflect on Psalm 90 over the next few days.

(To be continued)