Psalm 90:3

Psalm 90:3

Back to the dust!

This reads a bit like a death sentence and provokes images of a wrathful God glowering over us as He turns us all back to dust. In truth, it is simply a statement of fact, we all die, to dust we shall return and this because God ordered it to be so. In the judgements poured out upon those who defied the Lord in the Garden of Eden, the fateful words are pronounced over Adam, “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” Genesis 3:17-19.

It is important that we stop at times and take stock, this body of ours is mortal, it does not last forever, it grows old, it decays, and it eventually stops working. The inevitability of death hangs over every living creature, and no one can defy it or postpone it. For those of us who believe it is, of course, the beginning of a new chapter in our existence but we still have to prepare to face the consequences of our mortality, even as the Lord God clothes us with immortality! 

For all of us, it is God who determines the time, the place and the consequences of the end of our mortal lives and at some point, in the not-too-distant future, our bodies must return to the dust. God says so, but let’s allow the Apostle Paul to have the last say on how we live until the dust beckons! “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.” Romans 6:11-14.

 

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