How would you sum up your lifetime in just a few paragraphs? I am nearing the end of my fifty-fifth year and though I feel what the psalmist asserts, my life is but a breath, at the same time my years have been full and rich in both experience and emotion. My grandchildren have only just begun their journeys but it seems as if there was never a time before them. My children range from twenty-six to thirty and my husband and I have been married for nearly thirty-four years. It would be impossible to remember every moment but there are times when a memory comes with such ferocity that I am transported fully to that moment. It’s never an intentional remembrance. My spirit is stirred by an unseen eternal force and I am moved to action.
Maybe I must reach out to someone I haven’t seen or heard from in months or years. Maybe I pray, You know, Lord, and Your will be done. Often I must remind myself that God’s forgiveness, once received, will never be rescinded. After all, “He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.” (Psalms 103:12) Other times I must return a burden to Jesus’s feet and bear it no more. But more than anything else, I am moved to thankfulness. As I look back across my life, seasons of grief and pain, places I walked in the valley of the shadow of death, peak far above what I would count my greatest joys because I most sensed the presence of God at the end of myself. My own helplessness shifted my focus to the One who is sovereignly faithful, intent on accomplishing His purposes in my generation.
“Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.
Remind me that my days are numbered— how fleeting my life is.
You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand.
My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath.
We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing.
We heap up wealth, not knowing who will spend it.
And so, Lord, where do I put my hope?
My only hope is in you.”
Psalms 39:4-7 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.39.4-7.NLT
Meriam-Webster defines omniscient as having infinite understanding, awareness, and insight; possessed of universal or complete knowledge. Our triune God is completeness, wholeness. In and of Himself, He is sufficient, possessing all power and knowledge. Omniscient God knows all that can be known. By His Word, the world exists from nothing, and at His command the heavens and earth will be dismantled, making way for His eternal kingdom where the prayer Jesus instructed us to pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” will be reality.
“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.
All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”
1 Corinthians 13:12 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/1co.13.12.NLT
“We never really know enough until we recognize that God alone knows it all.”
1 Corinthians 8:3 MSG
https://bible.com/bible/97/1co.8.1-3.MSG
“You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”
Psalms 139:16 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.139.16.NLT
“I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.”
Psalm 57:2 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/psa.57.2.ESV
My daughter announced that she was expecting my first grandchild in the last month of the year, exactly four years ago. I was in the final days of my month long radiation therapy prior to four months of chemotherapy and colon resection. My diagnosis was abrupt and completely unexpected and my therapy aggressive. The news of a grandchild was on the one hand, just what the doctor ordered, but on the other hand, the knowledge of this new life that would begin just weeks after my surgery and stretch into an unknown future brought me to the most profound point of surrender in my life to date.
One tearful prayer stands out from that winter. Lord, You alone know how this ends. I want to live! I want to see this grandchild grow up and marry and have children, like my granny, to the fifth generation. Bless me as You blessed Job with 140 years after his tribulation, seeing four generations of his children and grandchildren, greeting death as an old man having lived a full life. (Job 42:16-17) But as Jesus prayed in the garden on the night of His arrest, not my will but Yours be done. (Luke 22:42) If you have never surrendered to God everything, especially those things most dear, even life itself, then you cannot know His profound peace that surpasses understanding that guards your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. You cannot know the joy of the Lord as your absolute strength.
In this, my third year of Read The Bible through the Gospel Coalition’s plan, (linked below) I came across this beautifully articulated commentary from Psalm 57. David, anointed king of Israel by Samuel the prophet at God’s command, on the run like a common criminal from Saul, the first king, is hidden in a cave, protected by the hand of God until the proper time. David has killed a giant, served Saul faithfully, married into his family, and is bound to his son, Jonathan, as a brother. Years pass before David is finally confirmed as king, but he is as God foreknew him, a man after God’s own heart.
“Even as he cries for mercy, David expresses his confidence in God’s sovereign power. The language is stunning: “I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills his purpose for me” (Ps. 57:2). The title “God Most High” is not very common in the Psalms. Perhaps David is thinking of another man without a home, Abraham, who was more familiar with this way of addressing God. Certainly David does not think that somehow circumstances have slipped away from such a God.
He begs for mercy, but he recognizes that God, the powerful God, fulfills his purposes in him.
This mixture of humble pleading and quiet trust in God’s sovereign power recurs in Scripture again and again. Nowhere does it reach a higher plane than in the prayer of the Lord Jesus in the garden: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39).
The refrain in Psalm 57:5 and 11—“Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth”—finds David not only in reverent worship, but affirming something believers easily forget, not least when they are under duress.
Perhaps the clearest New Testament equivalent lies in the prayer the Lord Jesus taught us: “[H]allowed be your name” (Matt. 6:9).
Here David meditates not on God’s sovereign power, but on God’s sovereign importance. More important, for David, than whether or not he gets out of the cave, is that God be exalted above the heavens.
The passionate prayer that willingly submerges urgent personal interests to God’s glory breeds both joy and stability: “My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make music” (Ps. 57:7).
Read the Bible: 2 Samuel 7, 2 Cor. 1, Ezekiel 15, and Psalms 56–57
Peter, three time Christ-Denier and once reconciled and forgiven, powerful preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ, wrote under inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, “Since all these things are on the verge of being dismantled, don’t you see how vital it is to live a holy life?
We must be consumed with godliness while we anticipate and help to speed up the coming of the day of God, when the atmosphere will be set on fire and the heavenly bodies consumed in a blaze.
But as we wait, we trust in God’s royal proclamation to be fulfilled.
There are coming heavens new in quality, and an earth new in quality, where righteousness will be fully at home.
So, my beloved friends, with all that you have to look forward to, may you be eager to be found living pure lives when you come into his presence, without blemish and filled with peace.
As for you, divinely loved ones, since you are forewarned of these things, be careful that you are not led astray by the error of the lawless and lose your firm grip on the truth.
But continue to grow and increase in God’s grace and intimacy with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
May he receive all the glory both now and until the day eternity begins. Amen!”
2 Peter 3:11-14, 17-18 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/2pe.3.18.TPT
And Paul, misguided persecutor of Christians, blinded by Christ, redirected missionary, wrote under the influence of the same Spirit, “Remember to stay alert and hold firmly to all that you believe.
Be mighty and full of courage.
Let love and kindness be the motivation behind all that you do.”
1 Corinthians 16:13-14 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/1co.16.14.TPT
“Be on guard; stand firm in your faith [in God, respecting His precepts and keeping your doctrine sound].
Act like [mature] men and be courageous; be strong. [Ps 31:24]
Let everything you do be done in love [motivated and inspired by God’s love for us].”
1 Corinthians 16:13-14 AMP
https://bible.com/bible/1588/1co.16.13-14.AMP
What if your worst season, the one you’d sooner forget, is the exact place where surrender meets Sovereignty? What if the cracks in your otherwise solid facade are the places where Jesus’s light and love can shine most brightly? What if the sum total of your life could be wrapped up in one sentence?
“He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.”
John 3:30 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.3.30.NLT
“Therefore, since God in his mercy has given us this new way, we never give up.
We reject all shameful deeds and underhanded methods.
We don’t try to trick anyone or distort the word of God.
We tell the truth before God, and all who are honest know this.
If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing.
Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe.
They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News.
They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.
You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves.
We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake.
For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.
We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.
This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed.
We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.
We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God.
We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.
Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.
Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies.
So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you.
But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.”
We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you.
All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.
That is why we never give up.
Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.
For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long.
Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!
So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen.
For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”
2 Corinthians 4:1-18 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/2co.4.7-18.NLT
“My heart is confident in you, O God; my heart is confident.
No wonder I can sing your praises!”
Psalms 57:7 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.57.7.NLT
A Fitting Reply 
I love reading everything this precious lady writes.
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