SOON TO DUST
Show me Lord my life’s end and the number of my days, and let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made my days a mere hand breadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure. A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. Teach us to number our days that we may gain hearts of wisdom.
Surely everyone goes around like mere phantoms. In vain they rush about, heaping up wealth without knowing whose it will finally be. You turn people back to dust saying: “Return to dust, you mortals”. Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty if our strength endures, yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
Where will one go from here? Many are not certain, are not sure, yet You sweep them away in the sleep of death. They are like the new grass of the morning; in the morning, it springs up new but by evening, it is dry and withered.
Who is man and where is he going after here? You have set before us, life and death. Cause us to choose life. Life in your only begotten Son. He said: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”. Lord, in Your mercy, cause us to choose life. Death, eternal death, is terrible and everlasting. Lord, cause us to choose life – life everlasting
Contributed by Brother Kofi Inkoom
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