A poetic reflection on how life flies by
Daily Scripture
Psalm 90:1-6, 10, 12, 17
1 Lord, you have been our help,
generation after generation.
2 Before the mountains were born,
before you birthed the earth and the inhabited world—
from forever in the past
to forever in the future, you are God.
3 You return people to dust,
saying, “Go back, humans,”
4 because in your perspective a thousand years
are like yesterday past,
like a short period during the night watch.
5 You sweep humans away like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning.
6 True, in the morning it thrives, renewed,
but come evening it withers, all dried up.
10 We live at best to be seventy years old,
maybe eighty, if we’re strong.
But their duration brings hard work and trouble
because they go by so quickly.
And then we fly off.
12 Teach us to number our days
so we can have a wise heart.
17 Let the kindness of the Lord our God be over us.
Make the work of our hands last.
Make the work of our hands last!
Daily Reflection & Prayer
This week Resurrection celebrated our senior pastor’s 60th birthday. Psalm 90 reflected poetically on how fragile and temporary our human life seems (verses 3-6). In and of itself, that can be a painful reality, making life and work feel pointless. But this hopeful Israelite hymn’s outlook reached well beyond this life’s boundaries. Its final prayer focused on our eternal God, and asked God to guide our work to have such a positive impact that it would last, not just for a few years but for eternity.
- Human arrogance wants our successes to last. Hitler bragged of a 1000-year Reich—it lasted barely a decade. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, after a vision in which many kingdoms followed his (cf. Daniel 2:31-44), built an all-gold image to claim his kingdom would last forever (cf. Daniel 3:1-5). Daniel was right, and mighty Babylon fell. List the key things you have done or are doing. Then pray Psalm 90:17, asking God to make the good impact of your work truly last for all eternity.
- The ancient Hebrews had a strong sense of how time’s passage shapes our world. Ecclesiastes 3 listed multiple life “seasons.” Psalm 90:12 said, “Teach us to number our days so we can have a wise heart.” Our culture often tries to ignore our time-boundedness, to keep us “forever young.” How can facing the truth that your supply of days is not unlimited change the way you live?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, help me to use my limited supply of days well. Keep me growing in my capacity to love as you love, to love in a way that can last for all eternity. Amen.
GPS Insights
Emily Stirewalt
Emily Stirewalt serves as Resurrection's Silverlink Pastor specializing in pastoral care of elderly adults. She is an ordained Elder in the Missouri Annual Conference and has served since 2007. She is married to Randall, a special education teacher. They have two daughters, Elliott and Marlowe. When Emily is not in a care home sharing communion or with her family on another Kansas City adventure, you can find her curled up on the couch at home binge watching "Friends" or "Golden Girls."
Surely it is a “coincidence” that the pastor who specializes in care for the frail and/or elderly in our church gets to share an insight in this week’s GPS!? No, I give God the glory for this happening. I never sought out ministry with only the elders among us. I knew that pastoral care was absolutely my calling and have found it to be the richest places of my full-time ministry over the past fifteen or so years. I have offered care to all ages and stages, in hospital trauma bays and in courtrooms during divorce proceedings. My calling to ordained ministry is about meeting people in their most vulnerable moments, sharing my own vulnerability and finding God’s strength together. And there is no richer place I have done that than our Silverlink ministry here at Resurrection.
Our ministry is offering care to those in some of their happiest years (if we are going to stick with the data Pastor Adam provided yesterday). We have no age limit for those who receive Silverlink care (the only requirement is if you cannot physically get to a church building anymore). But those we provide care for are in their most joyful years. And we have evidence–story after story from our Silverlink ministry might surprise you at how much joy there is in our ministry. Sometimes people make judgements about our ministry or the population we serve. Ageism (assuming that older people are all cranky, unresponsive or not valuable to our church) is certainly a sin we all struggle with from time to time. After all, our society has often taken the older among us and separated them away, only visiting when it is convenient to do so. I tell my volunteers often that we are going into some of the darkest places to offer Christ’s light.
I mentioned that there are many Silverlink stories that are full of evidence to prove the joyful years these folks are living. As a lifelong Kansas City Chiefs fan and a long time Swiftie, it has been a fun year for me. Imagine my pure delight on April 19th, 2024, a few months ago, when at a local care home, I found a group of 80 and 90-year-old women and men gathered to listen to Taylor Swift’s new album. One lady told me, “We have to hear if there are any songs about Travis [Kelce, Chiefs player and Taylor’s boyfriend], right!?” And I told her that she was correct and sat down to join in their joy. It was a powerful reminder that the generations before me have much to teach me. I hope you can find someone to join in joy with this week, especially if they might be someone you may have decided was done with joy due to their age.
