Perhaps visiting cemeteries over the past week brought this passage more to my eye this morning:

Lord, what are human beings that you care for them, mere mortals that you think of them? They are like a breath; their days are like a fleeting shadow.

Take a deep breath. Let it out. That’s your life. Humbling, isn’t it?

I walk through a cemetery and think about all the past lives represented there—people’s hopes and dreams, good decisions and bad ones, marriages and divorces, triumphs and tragedies. But I recognize only a handful of names out of thousands. Their lives are gone, like fleeting shadows.

David, the author of this psalm, lived a long and notable life, yet even he understood that life passes like a breath.

The wonder of this psalm focuses on the fact that despite our shadow-nature, the Lord enters our lives. He delivers us and cares for us, and gives us all we hold dearly. David underscores our incredible privilege as the focus of the Lord’s goodness.

As a fleeting shadow, I’ll rest a bit in that good news.

Psalm 144 in week twenty-three of reading the Bible cover to cover

Photo by Matthew Ansley