Though often recited at funerals, Psalm 90 is not a meditation on death—it’s a summons to live fully, courageously and purposefully in the face of systems that try to diminish our worth and silence our voice.
Moses understood this deeply. Raised in Pharaoh’s palace yet rooted in Hebrew identity, he saw injustice from both sides of the empire. His early anger came from believing people would simply “do right” because what was right was obvious. But oppression doesn’t dissolve under good intentions. Empire doesn’t yield because someone politely asks. Moses’ disappointment with both Egyptian brutality and Hebrew infighting pushed him into exile—but exile became the place where God reshaped him for liberation.
Starting over is not failure when God is in it. Moses carried his wounds, his questions, and his experience into the desert—and God transformed them into wisdom. Wisdom is born when we stop expecting oppressive systems to behave righteously and instead listen for God’s call to challenge them. Wisdom grows when we stop waiting for life to be fair and start walking with the One who hears the cries of the oppressed.
At 80 years old—an age when society would have dismissed him—God ignited Moses’ purpose. Liberation does not depend on youth, status, or credentials. It depends on encounter. When Moses met God, he discovered that his life still mattered, his voice still carried weight, and his story still had power. God reminded him that divine compassion is not selective; it reaches into deserts, into disappointments, into the places empire forgets.
The same is true for us. Meeting God awakens us to our purpose in the struggle for justice. When Jesus enters the heart, resignation gives way to resistance, despair gives way to hope, and silence gives way to testimony. Wisdom teaches us to place every day in God’s hands—not to escape the world’s pain, but to confront it with courage, clarity, and compassion.
(We invite your comments. Feel free to share this devotion with your friends and invite them to subscribe by forwarding their email address to the Pastor at: fredjeffsmith@gmail.com.)
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