This Psalm, attributed to Moses, is a sprawling meditation on God’s power, and God’s character; an awesome, terrifying power and an awesome, terrifying character. This Psalm mentions this a lot. Yet, what is it that is so terrifying about the power of God?
Psalm 90 suggests to me that the power and character of God is terrifying because for humanity God is uncontrollable. In Psalm 90:2 (NIV) Moses says, “from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” For God, “a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by,” (Psalm 90:4). And yet we, humans, are “like the new grass of the morning: In the morning it springs up new, but by evening it is dry and withered,” (Psalm 90:5-6). If we are lucky, we can last eighty years, yet God is everlasting
Unlike the psalmist I often find myself running from the holiness, power, and majesty of God. Rather than trusting the unexplainable majesty of God, I choose to define God for myself. Like the Israelites at the base of Mt. Sinai, I would rather turn God into a golden calf. Even though I can call it God, even though I say I know Jesus, if I define God for myself, if I confine God to a golden calf, I can control God. And if I can control God, then I am a god. “God” just becomes a justification for what I already think, what I already believe; or, what I want to think and believe.
Yet Moses knows that this is our tendency, since Adam and Eve in the garden. So he writes in Psalm 90:12, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” This parallels the Proverbs that say, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction,” (Proverbs 1:7) and later says “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding,” (Proverbs 9:10). Wisdom lets God define Himself, God reveal Himself, and God define us. Wisdom starts then, in not trying to be God. Wisdom starts in gladly being human.
God is terrifying. His power, His holiness, His majesty are terrifying. But this “terrifying” does not cause us to run away in fear. Rather, it means to me embracing the internal fear I have of letting go, embracing the fear of not being god, embracing the fear of being human. God is terrifying because He forces me to number my days, to realize my limits, to see my weakness, my vanity, my pride. He forces me to be human. Yet in doing so, I begin to find wisdom. I begin to let God tell me who He is, not just who I want Him to be, and through this I begin to discover the freedom God offers, only through being a weak, limited human.
- Dylan F.