Dr. Mac’s Minute: Responding to Crisis
Passage: Psalm 90:1-17
Focus: “Teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom” (v. 12)
Is it just me, or does it seem like our world careens from one crisis to another? Pandemic. Ukraine. Stock market collapse . . . rebound . . . collapse . . . rebound. About the time we think we can finally catch a breath, something new breaks out somewhere in the world. People have different responses to these and other crises. Some are better than others. I notice, however, there is one word I rarely see used in the press or social media in these times . . . wisdom.
Throughout Scripture, in times of pain, challenge, or turmoil, wise people asked God for wisdom.
Moses faced many tough moments in his 120 years. Numbers 20 had to have been one of the most painful. The chapter opens with the death of his sister Miriam, quickly moves to a conflict that results in Israel’s leader exchanging his privilege to enter the Promised Land for a moment of unbridled anger, and closes with the death of their first high priest, Aaron. Wow! And you think you had a tough week!
In response to this stretch of turmoil Moses cried out to God, “Teach us to number our days that we may present to You a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12). From the depths of his pain Moses recognized wisdom as a gift God gives to us to present back to Him. He recognized that the most important thing he could ask of the Father was for wisdom that would heal his grieving heart, meet the people’s needs, and overcome the flaws in his own personality.
As we confront uncertainty, whether it is on the world stage or within the unseen depths of our soul, the two most important prayer requests we can make are for God to receive glory and for us to receive His wisdom.
According to Moses, those who are wise acknowledge three things. First, the wise acknowledge who God is. “LORD, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were born, or You gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God” (vv. 1-2). In times of crisis, the faithful of every generation have run to God as their refuge. He is the Creator of everything and the Controller of eternity (vv. 3-4).
David declared that God is the dividing point between the wise and unwise when he wrote, “The fool has said in his heart, there is no God” (Ps. 14:1). Some deny God’s existence outright, others deny it with their actions (or inactions).
A few years ago, Vice President Mike Pence was mocked after being named head of the coronavirus task force because, according to one analyst, “He doesn’t believe in science. He believes you should pray and that’s outdated thinking.” May I suggest, we need more “outdated thinking” in the halls of power in our country and around the world.
After acknowledging that God is and that He is our hiding place in times of crisis, the second thing the wise do is acknowledge what they cannot do. Psalm 90 is filled with many things that Moses, as great as he was, knew he could not do. You can summarize them with two statements: we cannot dictate our will to a sovereign God, and we cannot change or derail a sovereign God’s purposes and plans.
Planning and strategizing is important, but we tend to make plans as though we are the sovereign one. This is why we get frustrated when things change. Recognizing God as our sovereign and ourselves as His servants won’t necessarily eliminate the pain of rough days, but yielding our plans to His will does give us confidence that even when we are uncertain or caught by surprise, He is not.
Finally, the wise acknowledge what they can do . . . lean on God’s grace. “Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us; and do confirm for us the work of our hands; yes, confirm the work of our hands” (v. 17).
At our recent SBC executive director’s annual meeting, New Orleans Baptist Seminary president Jamie Dew led us in a study of this psalm. Commenting on this verse he posed the question, “Why is it that my first response is always to look to me; to not recognize that I can do nothing without His favor?”
With genuine humility and surrender to God’s will and way, we can discover how to serve and act wisely.
At times the wisest statement we can make is the testimony Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego made to a cocky King Nebuchadnezzar: “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” (Daniel 3:17-18).
Confidence that, no matter what happens to me, God will be glorified and His kingdom advanced is the greatest declaration of the wise. In the midst of chaos and confusion, don’t miss the opportunity to declare to others the greatness of your Savior and the love and grace He has for them through the cross and empty tomb.