HE NEW YEAR STRETCHES OUT BEFORE US like a newly made bed without spot or wrinkle. We pause, wondering what it will bring to us.

Maybe we are apprehensive. The times are dangerous and uncertain. We sense that we have come to a period of great change in human history, to the "birth pains" of the new age to be ushered in by Jesus' return, as He predicted (Matt. 24:8, NIV). How shall we go out into the new year? By putting our hand in God's hand, letting Him be our strength and our guide.

I commend to you, dear reader, five certainties for 2005. These have gripped my heart as I have spent time recently with one of the most profound and beautiful passages of Scripture, Psalm 90. I share with you not some new analysis or scholarly insight, but the convictions from it that seem so appropriate for the year ahead.

Please pause right here. Read the psalm for yourself on the facing page. This is a prayer, attributed to "Moses the man of God." So read it as a prayer, putting yourself in the place of the speaker.

What do you hear in this psalm? Does it not speak to you as it has spoken to men and women through thousands of years—to Jew and Christian, to king and slave, to rich and poor? The themes are vast and sublime: God's eternity, our transience; God's righteous anger, our sinfulness; God's mercy, our longing to experience it.

Perhaps that's why this particular passage of the Bible impresses me as one on which to build the foundation of my life in 2005. Here are the five certainties—certainties for my life—that I find in it.

God will be my security, come what may.

The psalm's opening words form the bedrock for all that follows: "Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations."

All else fails. Investments slide as the stock market tumbles. Strength wanes as our health falters and our body ages. Leaders and governments struggle to cope with increasingly complex and intractable problems at home and abroad.

At times we feel confident and bold, with the world at our feet. But in fact we are very frail, we human beings, and before long life crashes in upon us, and our vaunted self-confidence flies out the window. The poet Wordsworth wrote of "the still, sad music of humanity"—and so it is.

We who live in the United States have come to a time of great uncertainty. With the horrendous attacks of 9/11, the world changed overnight. The nation's capital, Washington, D.C., has become a fortress city, with concrete barricades thrown up around the White House and financial institutions. Missile batteries stand poised to prevent new attacks from the skies. Residents stock up potassium iodide in the event terrorists set off a "dirty" bomb. Stress mints sell big, as do antidepressants: drugs such as Prozac and Xanax register sales of some $10 billion annually.

Psalm 90 never spoke its comforting words more powerfully to any generation. At this time of great uncertainty, God will be our dwelling place.

This psalm inspired Isaac Watts to write the classic hymn that breathes the same simplicity and stateliness of style:

"O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home!"

Just as we place our arms under our children supporting their first wobbly steps, as we place our arms under them supporting their first wobbly bicycle ride, so the Lord promises to put His arms under us, keeping us safe, protecting us from harm.

I do not know what 2005 will hold for me—what dangers, what threats, what challenges, what possibilities. But this I do know: whatever transpires, whether glad or tragic, God will be there. He will be there before I even know I need Him. God will be my dwelling place, my refuge, my security.

I invite you to let God be your security in 2005.

I must live this year with eternity in view.

When we are young, we think—and often act—as though we will live forever. We seldom pause to notice how quickly the moments fly by, how fast the numbers turn over on the odometer of life.

For many people today, how they look is a supreme value. They spend huge sums on clothes and cosmetics, on fitness and face-lifts. The "stars" of movies, television, and sports are their role models; they aspire to make it onto the set of a reality show and appear before millions of voyeuristic viewers—no matter how degrading or humiliating the activities they'll be required to engage in.

In this age feelings hold sway over reason and principles. The operational rule of life is: If it feels right, it is right.

Psalm 90 confronts our age head-on. It eyeballs us with the fact of our temporality and transience. "You turn man to destruction" (or better, "dust"), it reminds us. Over against the eternity of God, for whom 1,000 years is like yesterday or a watch in the night (about four hours), human existence is fragile and fleeting. Like the flood that sweeps away everything in its path, our life suddenly comes to an end. We are like a sleep, so soon over and so soon forgotten; or like the grass that sprouts up in the dew of the morning but withers under the heat of the day.

This life—so achingly beautiful, but so painfully short! Throughout the ages philosophers and poets have tried to pierce the meaning of this incredibly wonderful but monstrous thing we call human existence, sometimes finding uncommon words to limn our common lot:

"We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded
with a sleep" (Shakespeare, The Tempest).

Psalm 90 takes us further and deeper, however. It paints our transience against the backdrop of the Eternal One, our mortality over against His unchanging being.

And it tells us: We are not left alone in the universe. We are not the chance product of time and circumstance. Though we are mortal, the Immortal One invites us to dwell in Him. Though we are fragile, He welcomes us into His refuge, which is Himself.

So our lives have purpose. To know this infinite God is our chief end. To fear Him is the beginning of wisdom.

This was the message of Jesus Christ, who was God in human flesh. "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John 17:3).

In light of Psalm 90, I must live this new year with eternity in view. By God's power and insight I must take the long view—the view that sees my life as but a sleep, as grass, as a tent swept away by a flash flood.

To take the long view—heaven's view—is to let heaven's values shape my life. To see as God sees. To find deep calm in the midst of stress. To keep cool and clearheaded when everyone around me is losing their head and blaming it on me.

I need God's help—I can't make it on my own.

Life's sadness has a double edge. Not only is our existence fleeting, it is warped and broken. Sin has invaded the innermost recesses of our being—we are fatally flawed. "You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your countenance" (Ps. 90:8).

The human tendency is to blame others and excuse ourselves, to find fault elsewhere—anywhere but with ourselves. But the problem lies closer to home.

I need the realism and honesty that this psalm calls me to. I need to acknowledge that I need help from outside myself. I need to admit that the eternal God sees into the innermost recesses of my being.

It's hard for humans to confess their need of God. How rarely does someone admit unreservedly, "The buck stops here"? Even when we apologize, we tend to hedge it around with qualifications. Maybe the words we find most difficult to say are "I'm sorry."

It's hard for religious people to apply the psalmist's words to themselves. Because we don't steal, fornicate, and cuss, we privately think of ourselves as having risen above the common herd of sinners. We forget what Jesus said in His rebuke of the religious leaders of His day: out of the heart proceed the secret sins that defile a person (Matt. 15:18, 19). Pride, envy, and selfishness are no respecters of the cloth.

In Psalm 90:7-11 we find "wrath" or "anger" five times. To many Christians today, God's "wrath" is an alien concept, an idea long since discarded. But when we realize the sinfulness of sin—that sin caused the death of the Son of God—we understand more clearly this biblical teaching. And not only Jesus' death: He, the all-compassionate person, blazes with white-hot fury in confronting hypocrisy and exploitation.

A certainty for 2005 is that if I deny my need of God, I will fall flat on my spiritual face. But the parallel certainty invites me: So long as I keep my hand in His, so long as I look away from my own strength and wisdom, He will uphold me moment by moment and day by day—every day of this year—in the path of His will.

Make this day count for eternity.
"So teach us to number our days,
That we may gain a heart of wisdom" (verse 12).

What is a heart of wisdom? "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding" (Prov. 9:10).

Those who have found this heavenly wisdom do not drift aimlessly through life, never satisfied. They aren't blown hither and yon by restless, unfulfilled desires. No! They have found the Anchor, the meaning of this life. They know that, although we are frail creatures of time and place, we have an eternal destiny. We were made for the stars, to fulfill a purpose endless and glorious that we can but dimly imagine.

Jesus of Nazareth, whom we confess as Savior and Lord, fully grasped the meaning of life. The Gospel accounts picture Him rising early before dawn's first light to commune with the Eternal One (Mark 1:35), sometimes spending the entire night in prayer (Luke 6:12). He knew who He was and why He had come. "I must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day," He said, "the night is coming when no one can work" (John 9:4).

We who follow Him find ourselves impelled by the same spirit: "Work for the night is coming." It's not just that our days are few and soon will seep away—the night is coming. Not the night of the grave, but night for this world. Time is running its course; the whole creation is groaning and creaking awaiting its restoration, its deliverance from the pain and ruin sin has brought (Rom. 8:19-21). It stretches in eager expectation for the glad day when Jesus will come back, when He who made all things and died to redeem us will come in glory and make a new heaven and earth.

I have one day only—today. Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow no more than a hope. Today I must seek a heart of wisdom. Today I must improve every moment to the glory of my Lord. Today I must reach out a hand of mercy and compassion to the wounded and the broken. Today I must tell someone that God loves them and wants them to live forever with Him.

Every day this year may I wake up and praise God for the gift of life. May a song of praise echo in my heart and on my lips. May I rejoice in Christ's new life and the work He has entrusted to my hands.

Live in grace.
"Return, O Lord! How long? And have compassion on Your servants," cries the psalmist as he comes to the closing section of this magnificent prayer (Ps. 90:13).

How often have God's people breathed these sentiments! Because they know God personally, they know that He may be counted upon to return. He is the one who abides faithful though all others prove unfaithful, who will not leave us alone in our distress. We are frail and flawed, but Yahweh is abundant in compassion.

The words of this closing section ring with confidence that God will act. He will come to our aid because He is God, "full of grace and truth" (John 1:14; cf. Ex. 34:6, 7). Despite all that befalls us—stormy seas and darkest midnight—He will "return," and in His presence our fears and doubts will melt away.

Those who live in grace—that is, who have the assurance of God's abiding favor in spite of their transience and falling short of the perfect will of God—have this confidence. Theirs isn't a naïve optimism like Charles Dickens' character Mr. Micawber, who was always waiting for something to "turn up," nor is it the confidence of inexperience, of a person who hasn't been tested by the fires of affliction. They have tasted the Lord and found that He is good; they have taken Him at His word and found that He keeps His promises.

Grace comes to those in need. We never deserve it. And grace amazes and delights because it is lavish, beyond all we can ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20).

So the verses of this final section of Psalm 90 ring with hope:

"Satisfy us early with your mercy" (verse 14).
"Make us glad" (verse 15).
"Let Your work appear . . . and Your glory" (verse 16).
"Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, . . . establish the work of our hands" (verse 17).

I want to live in grace in 2005. I want to know soul satisfaction, gladness and joy, the sense of God's working in my life and in the lives of others, and His beauty (or favor) upon me as He establishes the work of my hands.

"In the matchless gift of His Son, God has encircled the whole world with an atmosphere of grace as real as the air which circulates around the globe. All who choose to breathe this life-giving atmosphere will live and grow up to the stature of men and women in Christ Jesus" (Steps to Christ, p. 68).

Friend of mine, as you go out in the new year, take a deep, deep draft of God's grace. You are loved! You are special! Jesus died for you. And throughout this year keep breathing it in. Live in grace, as a son or daughter of the King of heaven—because that's who you are.
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*Unless otherwise noted, Bible texts in this article are from the New King James Version.

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William G. Johnsson is Editor of the Adventist Review.