The Work of Our Hands

September is a time for work. Maybe you had a great summer, but now it is back to class. Now it’s time to start that big project at the office. In our households, we try to get back into a normal routine.

We wade into the busyness with mixed feelings. Maybe you’re excited to tackle your responsibilities again or to start at a new school. Perhaps you face another season of work with a sense of boredom. Others are burdened with the stress of everything that needs to be done. We can get lost in the frenzy of the daily schedule.

On the cusp of our labours, it is good to think about what we’re doing. Why are we working? Why are we studying? Besides that, we ask something else, more practical: Where will we get the strength for all this activity? What will keep us going?

First, we need to take care of our bodies. When the kids head out the door to school, Mom makes sure the lunch box is full of nutritious food—that’ll keep them going. Those who work for a living know they need to get their eight hours of sleep. We all need that: we need our meals and our rest.

But what about something more? What’s the real fuel for our labours? Where does the inner strength come from, to stick with our calling for another day? Think of those times when it’s very hard to work. The hour is late, and you’re still not done writing your report. The kids are cranky, and you’re just trying to keep it together until they go to bed. When the property tax bill is due, or you have four exams in the next five days, and it feels like you don’t have much left—work is hard.

We need something more, then. And we find it in our Lord, who is what we truly need for a new season: grace never diminished, never lacking. This grace arises from Moses’s prayer in Psalm 90:17, “Let the favour of the LORD our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands.”

Today, we’re asking for a blessing on our labour, and the conviction that it’s all worthwhile.

Psalm 90 is not really a cheerful prayer, but more like a meditation on the frailty of human life. Moses had witnessed the suffering of God’s people in Egypt. He’d also seen their rebellion in the desert, and he’d gone with them while they waited to enter the land.

Over all those decades, what had Moses learned? He’d learned that compared to the everlasting God, mankind is but a breath. We’re from the dust, and to the dust all of us will return (v. 3). God simply has to say it, and we’re gone, like so many of the annuals that we planted in the spring—shriveled and wilting. God’s not like that, but eternal and unchanging.

Another lesson is that God always has the last word, no matter who we are. For who are we in his sight? Sinful, deserving of God’s wrath. Moses saw that a lot during Israel’s wilderness years: “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” (vv. 7-8).

Those words ought to humble us. Think for a moment about the sins you committed this past summer—maybe how your good intentions came to nothing. Or imagine the sins you’ll commit in the coming months, especially when the pressure is on and you’re feeling stressed. Are you always going to respond in the right way? God sets our iniquities before him, our secret sins in the light of his presence.

At the beginning of a new season of labour and activity, we might have high expectations: big plans for our business, visions of straight A’s on our report card. We’re pretty sure something will come of our talents, or the relationship we’re in right now. These can be good things to hope for.

But let’s also be realistic. Remember, we’re just dust. Our life can change in an instant, from one moment to the next: a layoff, an illness, an accident. It’s a life that can crumble to an end in a moment, for any of us. 

And if we haven’t loved Christ before that moment, what will come of all our labours?

That’s the question being asked in Psalm 90: What will come of us and our proudest accomplishments? What will you have to show for your work? Without God, all will amount to nothing. All will be forgotten: “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble” (v. 10). Without God’s daily grace, every last one of our plans and accomplishments and paycheques will be lost. Meaningless.

So how can we avoid the futility that’s always near the surface of this life? Hope begins already in the first line of Psalm 90: our dwelling place is God (v. 1). In the everlasting God and Father, we have our security and purpose for all the days of our life.

And when we live with God by faith, we can depend on the blessing of his favour: “May the favour of the LORD our God be upon us” (v. 17). Pray: that his goodness would rest on you and all your efforts. Pray: that day by day, He’d show his kindness and mercy. Pray, with the humble confession that God doesn’t owe you—not at all—yet you may appeal to his unfailing favour and grace in Christ.

For the Son of God became a frail man, a man of dust, one who didn’t even live half-way to seventy. Hung on a tree to pay the penalty for all our rebellion, when God’s wrath fell with fury upon him.

Christ gave his body, He poured out his blood, a flawless act of grace. If you’re looking for a source of strength, this is it. If you’re seeking renewal of hope, encouragement for the coming months, this is it. This is the food and drink that’ll keep you going.

When God’s favour rests upon us, then the prayer in the second half of verse 17 receives its answer. We pray, “Establish the work of our hands for us.” God will do exactly that: He will bless our daily labours and give them a staying power.

I think we all want to do work that endures. We want there to be meaning in it, for our labours make a difference. In Christ, that’s what we can pray: “Lord, establish the work of my hands. Be pleased to use my ordinary efforts for something bigger than they appear to be. Use my modest talents and abilities for a more lasting cause.”

Every other labour will come to ruin and waste. But these labours will not. When our dwelling place is in God, our humble works take their place in the grand project that is called God’s Kingdom, and the Church of Jesus Christ.

Whatever you’re doing, do it for him. You’re studying, you’re volunteering, you’re teaching, you’re being a mom, you’re running a business, you’re taking care of the church, you’re being a good neighbour—Paul says somewhere, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, for it is the Lord Christ you are serving!”

For whatever you do today, may our Lord Christ feed and sustain you. And may He establish the work of your hands.