So teach us to number our days
That we may apply our hearts to wisdom.
Return, O LORD; how long will you tarry?
Be gracious to your servants.
Satisfy us by your steadfast love in the morning;
So shall we rejoice and be glad all our days.
Made us glad as many days as you afflicted us
And as many years as we suffered adversity.
Show your servants your works,
And your splendor to their children.
May the graciousness of the Lord our God be upon us;
Prosper the word of our hands; prosper our handiwork.
~Psalm 90:12-17
“Return, O LORD; how long will you tarry?” I find this an interesting demand and question of God. Biblical interpreter and scholar Dr. Walter Brueggemann points out that earlier in the psalm we have an understanding from God that commands that we turn back to God: “After God has bud us to ‘turn back’ (v. 3), the Psalmist dares to spin the same imperative back to God: ‘Turn, O Lord!’ (v. 13)” My immediate response to reading this is a wondering in how bold one must be to ask such a question of God. It reminds me of another verse in the book of psalms: Psalm 8:4,
“What are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?”
Truly, why should God give any care to us who are here today yet gone tomorrow as the grass of the field? Why would God have care for us and how can one find the boldness to petition God? But the Psalmist of Psalm 8 continues:
“Yet you have made them a little low than God,
And crowned them with glory and honor.”
The answer comes down to a nonanswer. We aren’t deserving of God’s mindfulness any more than the lilies of the field or the birds of the air, and yet, God has prepared for us a place of honor. Through God’s steadfast love we are reminded of a God that shows up grace and mercy time and time again and will do so again. Even when we ask of God, “how long will you tarry? How long will you be silent? O LORD, my God, where are you? Come near to me.” We are reminded of a God that does not leave us. This promise of steadfastness is most apparent in the resurrection as Jesus comes back and says, “I am with you.” And in the ascension as a way of saying, “and I will be with you always.”
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