A Pivot in Time Marks Eternity

His eyes lighted when he saw me walking toward him in the crowd. My grandson headed straight toward me with a smile, and sidled up against my side. He stretched his arms around me and squeezed my waist. He’d grown so tall, I realized. These ten-year-old uninitiated hugs were becoming rare. His peeling away had begun. I know it from other grandchildren before him.

And so I breathed it in deeply and leaned my head against his as we walked together, his arm around me and mine draped over his shoulders. These are the crowns of the gray-haired. This is the treasure of my generation, the jewels of grandma-hood.

God is the God of generations.

We see it in the way God names a heritage for Himself in the Old Testament and in the fullness of time, through Jesus Christ, His own Son. We witness it in Scripture’s setting apart the “firstborn,” with its foreshadowing of the ultimate Firstborn Savior. We embrace it as children of God, offspring of faith in the Christ.

And, with those physical generations, layers upon layers, we all find entwined instruction and purpose to be proclaimers of God’s words to those who follow our footsteps.

As I walked with my ten-year-old grandson, I caught that glimpse again. It was a glimmer of unborn, unnamed, unknown, and more to come. It gripped my heart for faithfulness in the littlest of things. In a word. In a smile. In a praise. In a hug.

It drew me to a Psalm I’d read recently, and then re-read again. It’s impossible to read Psalm 102 without entering into the intense affliction of its author. He is distressed, suffering, emotionally depleted, lonely, and ridiculed. He laments his own brief withering existence.

A life of suffering consumes him, and reminds us, the readers, of our own troubles and the brevity of our time.

But in its sad reading, something divine shines.

“But You, O Lord, are enthroned forever; you are remembered throughout all generations.” (Psalm 102:12 ESV)

And suddenly, the doom and gloom of the chapter pivots. The abrupt twist leaves me almost bewildered.

Like a pebble thrown into a personal sea of sorrow, God’s redemptive heart calls for his people to truly know Him. Not just know about Him, and share that truth with others.

It calls for a spiritual inheritance which doesn’t shrink inside itself, but one that grows outside, embracing more. Bringing in others, sharing faith in bigger and broader scopes. It births an explosion of ripples.

For in Psalm 102, a man looks at life’s end coming at him, pressing hard against him, hurrying him, invading his very being. But then, his entire perspective shifts. Physical healing hadn’t come. Circumstances didn’t change. His tears still “mingled with his drink,” and his “enemies taunted him.”

But, as it were, with pen in hand, the writer of the Psalm changed.

Urgency overthrew the melancholy. Vanishing years, like the changing of our clothing is a fact of our existence.

“…but you are the same, and your years have no end.” (Psalm 102:26-27 ESV).

Like the author of Psalm 102, I wonder at how quickly time passes.    

And if I am not careful, the focus of my mortality can overcome the reality of each moment’s importance for eternity. 

This relentless tick of the clock only confirms God’s self-existing infinity.If I am not careful, the focus of my mortality can overcome the reality of each moment’s importance for eternity Share on X

“Nations will fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory.” (Psalm 102:15 ESV)

The author of Psalm 102 begins to view his own mortality unbound by flesh’s decay. He saw his one life in the light of more to come, of souls not even born yet.

“Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord.” (Psalm 102:18 ESV)

Faith, that surrendered trust in Jesus separates us. It makes us His own, and must be the shared triumph of every believer of every nation and all times.

God’s redemptive heart for the nations pours out of the heart of the Psalmist’s suffering, and lifts his eyes to hope where spiritual realities are higher than personal temporal situations.Faith, that surrendered trust in Jesus separates us Share on X

And it reminds me, that even affliction can ripple with a testimony of joy in an unchanging God, whose years have no end, although mine begin to fade.

My chin rested against the crown of my ten-year-old grandson’s head and inside warmth filled me. I glanced at his mother who gave me that “sweetest thing ever” look, a recognization that this melting moment is one to treasure forever.

And in the light of a darkened pathway, across the top of my grandson’s blonde head, we smiled at each other with grateful hearts.