What does it look like to respond rightly to the trials we face in life?
Book four of the Psalms (90–106) provides us with such a picture.
We often think of the book of Psalms as a collection of individual passages with little to no connection to those that precede or follow them. For example, we might interpret Psalm 92 with little regard for Psalms 91 and 93. In such cases, we look solely at an individual psalm without accounting for its wider canonical context.
Yet the book of Psalms actually displays a flow of thought as it proceeds. Psalms is divided into five collections: book one (Psalms 1– 41), book two (Psalms 42–72), book three (Psalms 43–89), book four (Psalms 90–106) and book five (Psalms 107–150). Not only does the setting of an individual psalm factor into our interpretation of it, but the place that a given psalm occupies in the final composition of the overall book also provides us with clues as to how that psalm was to function and be understood in the life of God’s people.
This is particularly evident in book four of the Psalms, which focuses on God’s people in crisis. Book three ends (Ps 89) by highlighting the exile of God’s people and the crisis it precipitated in their life. Book four then serves as a sustained response to that crisis. In other words, Psalms 90–106 directed God’s people in how to respond to the trials they were facing—displaced as they were from their homeland.
Psalms 90–106 can thus help us understand what it looks like to respond to and walk through trials in a wise and worthy manner. This response begins with prayer in Psalm 90.
Recognition
The immediate response in Psalm 90 is a prayer of recognition. The psalmist declares,
“Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
Or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”
Ps 90:1–2
Right away, the psalmist recognizes two things. First, the Lord himself is our ultimate home—our dwelling place. He is far greater than the physical places we inhabit. This was a major confession for a people who were being held captive in a foreign land! Second, the Lord alone is immortal. Conversely, the psalmist also recognizes the mortality of humanity (Ps 90:3–6).
Thus, we find here that a right response to trial begins with a recognition of the greatness of the Lord and the reality that our earthly dwelling places are not ultimate. The Lord himself is our home, our refuge, our dwelling place—no matter where we are in this short life.
Repentance
The psalmist then proceeds with an acknowledgment of sin. He states in Ps 90:7–8,
“For we are brought to an end by your anger;
By your wrath we are dismayed.
You have set our iniquities before you,
Our secret sins in the light of your presence.”
While not all trials are rooted in personal sin, the exile that God’s people were facing certainly was. They had failed to uphold God’s ideals of love, justice and mercy in the midst of the promised land, and as a result, they were taken captive by surrounding nations. The psalmist here does not run from that failure, but rather acknowledges it before God.
Even though the trials we face may not stem from indwelling sin, they do provide us an opportunity to examine ourselves and confess what sin is present. Further, in such trying circumstances we are often tempted to look away from the Lord. Thus, a posture of repentance should remain part of how we respond to trials.
Request
Finally, the psalmist begins to lay out petitions before the Lord. He makes eight requests:
- Teach us number our days [so that we may get a heart of wisdom] (Ps 90:12)
- Return, O Lord (Ps 90:13)
- Have pity on your servants (Ps 90:13)
- Satisfy us (Ps 90:14)
- Make us glad (Ps 90:15)
- Let your work and glorious power be shown to us (Ps 90:16)
- Let your favor be upon us (Ps 90:17)
- Establish the work of our hands (Ps 90:17)
These requests highlight the needs of God’s people amid their crisis. Disoriented as they were from being taken into captivity, God’s people needed the Lord to meet them and have pity on them, to cultivate in them wisdom, to satisfy them and make them glad, to show them his power and his favor.
Such requests are proper for anyone walking through trying circumstances. For the Lord alone has the power to satisfy us in the midst of trials, to teach us the way of wisdom in the midst of adversity, and to help us remain faithful in the midst of hardship.
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Thus, the psalmist and God’s people respond to the crisis of exile first through prayer. In this prayer they move from a recognition of the greatness of God, to repentance from sin, to, finally, a set of requests in which they beseech the Lord for his help.
As such, Psalm 90 provides us a window through which we learn, in part, what it looks like to rightly respond to trials. We recognize that Christ alone is our dwelling place, the one in whom we abide (John 15). We repent of sin, which tempts us to look away from instead of fixing our eyes on Christ (Heb 12:2). And we request him to abide in us even as we abide in him and to be our very present help in times of trouble (Ps 46:1; Heb 4:14–16).