Read Psalm 104:25-29. 24Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. 26There go the ships, and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it. 27These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. 28When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. 29When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.
The psalmist continues to play off of Genesis 1 and the creation account. We recall that everything that God made was declared to be good. Here we are reminded that God’s goodness did not end on day seven. God has rested from his ex nihilo creating, but not from his giving of all good things to his creation.
And yet this part of the psalm is not some “Life is Good” t-shirt. It ends with the sober reminder that the same God that gives all good things, also gives and takes away breath. When God’s face, his breath, is hidden a person passes away, separating spirit from body. The body returning to the dust from whence it came.
So why should we keep our lives from becoming an “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die” manifesto? Why not go all Ecclesiastes here? Enjoy everything and then die.
Because in Christ death is not the end. The return to dust is no longer God’s final word. Jesus has conquered death and the grave. Now our lives have ultimate meaning. Now the meaning of life isn’t “enjoy everything and die,” now to live is Christ is “enjoy God and live forever.”
Prayer. Jesus, you have filled my life with good things. Not so that I can enjoy them briefly until I die, but so that they can point my heart to enjoy you forever. May that be my meaning, my purpose, my identity in you. Amen.
To Live is Christ 