Summary:
May our prayer requests emulate Moses’ 4 prayer requests:

1. Teach us to number our days: Are we redeeming our time or wasting our time?
2. Have compassion on us: Repent of your sins, and He will relent from punishment.
3. Satisfy us early with Your unfailing love: The love of men fails, but God’s love lasts forever.
4. Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us: Afflictions are inevitable, but joy and peace from the Lord fills us with hope to press on!

Psa 90:12-15 records Moses’ prayer that has 4 requests. Are our requests similar to his?

1. Teach us to number our days

Psa 90:12
So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.

No matter how long or short these days are, we tend to number them. More importantly, do we number with wisdom? Do we number correctly? If we number wrongly, it might cost us some setbacks and loss. For example, in chess, every step is numbered to create a checkmate. But when a step is miscalculated, it can result in losing the round. If we miss a count (we are supposed to take a figure into account but did not), it may bring regret and pain. For example, the rich fool was a calculative man whose calculations were precise and accurate (Luke 12:16-21). That’s how he got what he desired. He thought he could live the rest of his life in happiness. Pitifully, he didn’t account for what God wanted him to number. God said, “Tonight I require your soul of your. To whom will you leave your things to?”

Moses said in v10:
“The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”

Therefore Moses pleaded to the Lord that we would know how to number our days.

In Psa 39:4, David made this request as well.

“Lord, make me to know my end, And what is the measure of my days, That I may know how frail I am.”

Actually, our days are not long, especially within the time of this pandemic, we see how many lives were lost suddenly. So many unexpected calamities today result in our already short lives being at risk of being cut off suddenly.

We need to ask God to help us number our days so we have wisdom to not count wrongly or miscount; to know the day we meet the Lord draws near. Let’s make proper use of our remaining days on earth to meet our Lord again.

Eph 5:15-17
See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

Are we redeeming our time or wasting our time? How much time do we have left that we can afford to waste? Are we fools or wise? Do we live our lives according to our own will or according to the will of the Lord? A fool won’t cherish the time God has given him, living life muddleheadedly. He doesn’t carefully consider what God wants him to do with the time God has given him. He won’t use his time to pursue spiritual matters but indulge in the matters of the flesh. As a result, he would find himself in sin. However the wise knows how to cherish the time God has given. He understands the will of the Lord and is willing to live his life according to it. He labours for both the Lord and for what he has to do on earth. He looks after his own household and the household of God. He lives for himself and also for the Lord. He has found the value of eternity. All that he does is linked to eternity and what God wants him to do. He lives each day God gives him with a heart of fear.

We also live day by day, but what’s the value of our lives? Is it solely placed on earthly things? Remember what Moses said, it’ll be cut off and fly away.

God has given us time in the world not to spend them on the affairs of this world. It’s to pursue after spiritual matters and prepare ourselves over the matter of our soul. Our days on earth aren’t long. We have to ask the Lord to teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

2. Return, O Lord, and have compassion on Your servants

Psa 90:13
Return, O Lord! How long? And have compassion on Your servants.

God is omniscient so He won’t regret what He has done. We regret because we don’t know the outcome of our actions. Why then does the Chinese version of the Bible say God regrets/后悔? It actually means the servants are the ones who should repent/后悔. We ask the Lord to have mercy on us and not judge us according to our sins.

Jonah 3:5-9
So the people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them. Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; do not let them eat, or drink water. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yes, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who can tell if God will turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we may not perish?

This records the plea to the people of Nineveh to repent or be destroyed. Everyone from the king to the common folk, from old to young, covered themselves in sackcloth and ashes, and repented. They turned away from their evil ways. When God saw their repentance, He relented/后悔.

Psa 90:8
You have set our iniquities before You, Our secret sins in the light of Your countenance.

Some of the sins we commit can be seen but many cannot be seen. Nevertheless, whether they can be seen or cannot be seen, none are hidden before the Lord. This is why we have to repent/后悔 before God. We ask God to turn and relent/后悔 so He won’t punish us, so we have another opportunity to start afresh.

Psa 51:9-10
Hide Your face from my sins, And blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

We think: Whenever David commits sin, God forgives him. Why doesn’t God forgive us when we sin?

The question should rather be whether our repentance is as genuine as David’s. Do we truly want to start afresh and repent of our evil ways? Or do we only seek forgiveness because we are afraid of punishment? If we’re not genuine about wanting to depart from evil, how can we depart from sin?

If we really want to repent, we ought to be like the people of Nineveh who truly repented; to be like David who truly started anew; to have a new and clean heart to serve the Lord.

3. Satisfy us early with Your unfailing love

Psa 90:14
Oh, satisfy us early with Your unfailing love, That we may rejoice and be glad all our days!

In the days of our lives, we need various forms of love. Besides love that comes from family, we need love that comes from our friends. If we live a life without love, it’ll be a difficult one. When our days are filled with love, it’s easy to go through them. Yet, often the love of men changes because of time or circumstances. When the love of men fails, days become more difficult to go by.

Moses hence prays that God satisfies us early with His love, because His love is forever. With His love, our days become easier. We need God’s love, why do we not ask for it? To gain love, we have to put in a fair amount of effort and time. We might even have to inconvenience ourselves to show love to the other party, but they may not reciprocate our love. Or perhaps the love they show is superficial. We show them genuine love but their love isn’t genuine. Why don’t we redirect our time and effort to pursue God’s love? We all know God’s love is genuine and unchangeable. But how much time and effort do we spend to seek and pursue God’s love? Moses teaches us to make the plea for God to satisfy us with His love and mercy. Let’s not only find out about the goodness of His love in the future. That may be too late. Particularly, in times of pain, God’s love can become our strength and comfort.

Rom 8:35-37
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

Many believers claim God doesn’t love them during tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword. But Paul says none of these can separate us from the love of Christ. Even though he met with so many difficulties, he never doubted God’s love. This is how Paul was triumphant in times of difficulties, while we may fail. Paul can clearly behold the love of God in tribulation. It shows our understanding of the love of Christ may not be as rich as Paul’s. Our understanding of Christ’s love may be superficial. We may claim to want His love but actually only want His help. We think He loves us when He helps us and doesn’t when He doesn’t help us. When a child cries because a parent doesn’t give him something not good for him, he may think his parents don’t love him. But that’s because he is still not matured. We need to be matured in spirit.

Rom 5:5
Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Many times we pray to ask the Holy Spirit to help us in this and that matter. But one of the important works of the Holy Spirit is to pour out God’s love in our hearts. We often neglect this. Let’s pay attention to the requests we make. Let one of our requests be for the Holy Spirit to pour the love of God in our hearts. If our hearts are truly filled with the love of God, we will not be sorrowful. We become more than conquerors.

4. Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us

Psa 90:15
Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us, The years in which we have seen evil.

Why don’t we ask the Lord to remove affliction in our days? Or remove all days of affliction? Moses instead prayed that we be made glad in our days of affliction.

Jesus said, “In this world you will have tribulation.” This is why it’s inevitable to encounter woes in our lives. As much as we want to be a special child of God protected from all tribulations, if we think about it, even Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God had to suffer, what more us? Having days of affliction are unavoidable. We don’t ask God to take them away but to make us glad and to be at peace. This is God’s promise. “In Me, You will have peace. I will give you all joy and peace.”

Rom 15:13
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Who can give us joy and peace? Whose words are powerful enough to fill us with hope? Only God. The God of hope can fill you with all hope and peace. Tribulations are unavoidable but joy and peace can be sought from the Lord. Paul who was beaten and afflicted did not murmur but sang hymns. All the prisoners listened intently because they were surprised. Only God can fill us with all joy and peace to overcome afflictions, to persevere in faith and be willing to suffer for the Lord. Ask the Lord for joy and peace in afflictions. That’s how weeping will turn to rejoicing. Our sighs will turn into praises. Emptiness to abundance. Then we bear a wonderful testimony for the Lord. We may encounter blessings or tribulations that are unexpected.

Let’s learn from the requests of Moses. When we put our trust in the Lord, we will have the strength to overcome tribulations.