4 Surprising Truths About Your Life’s Work, Hidden in an Ancient Prayer
Introduction: The Echo of a Meaningful Life
“It is soon cut off, and we fly away.” With these stark words, Moses confronts a truth we often try to ignore: our lives are startlingly brief. Psalm 90 paints a sober picture of human frailty, reminding us that our days are numbered and our strength is fleeting. This realization gives birth to one of the most urgent questions of the human experience: In a short life, how can anything we do truly last? How can our work be anything more than vapor?
In the face of this anxiety, modern culture offers endless advice on personal achievement. But Moses, standing at the end of his life, offers not a strategy, but a prayer. Found in the closing verses of this same psalm, his plea to God reveals a counter-intuitive and profound framework for a life of enduring significance—one that challenges our most cherished ideas about work, purpose, and faith.
This ancient prayer contains four surprising truths. This is radical reorientation of what it means for our work to matter, offering the only true antidote to a fleeting life: participation in an eternal one.
1. Your Work Will Only Last if It’s Not Your Work
The prayer at the heart of Psalm 90 is found in verse 17: “Establish thou the work of our hands upon us.” It is a desperate plea for our life’s efforts to be confirmed, to be made to stand. Yet, many industrious people never pray it. Perhaps it is a prideful, self-made attitude that resists admitting need, or a fear that inviting God’s involvement also invites His scrutiny.
The radical truth, however, is hidden in the prayer’s structure. The request to establish our work in verse 17 is preceded by a foundational request in verse 16: “Let thy work appear unto thy servants.” These are not two separate wishes, but two parts of a single, dependent reality. The prayer reveals a stunning dependency: our work can only be established after we have seen, and joined, His. This reframes our entire concept of labor, shifting it from a human-centered activity that God blesses to a God-centered mission that we are invited to join.
Our efforts are rescued from vanity only when they serve a purpose larger than our own. As the Apostle Paul reinforces, it is work done “in the Lord” that endures: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).
“And whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance for you serve the Lord Christ.”
2. The Primary “Work of God” Has Been Forgotten
But to align our work with God’s is to accept a profound challenge: we must first know what His work actually is. And it is here that a great and tragic misunderstanding has taken root in modern Christianity. If we ask what God’s work is, we hear many true and vital answers: believing in Him, building the church, soul-winning, assisting the poor. While these are all essential, they are encompassed by a much larger, primary work that has often been forgotten.
The predominant work of God, the central theme of Jesus’s own ministry, is the building of His kingdom. Yet for many today, the kingdom is a vague concept—something “nebulous,” “celestial,” or relegated to a far-off future. It is not seen as a tangible reality to be constructed here and now, in this world.
This loss of vision has devastating consequences. When the kingdom is not our present mission, the King Himself risks becoming a mere figurehead rather than a reigning Sovereign whose work we are actively engaged in.
“Destroy by direct assault or by neglect the kingdom and the kingdom at best becomes only a figurehead like the monarchs today in England.”
When its central mission is lost, the faith itself is endangered. As the source text warns, when the kingdom is neglected, “real Christianity, is perishing before our very eyes.”
3. The King Establishes the Kingdom, but You Are Supposed to Build It
A common misconception follows from this confusion: if building the kingdom is God’s work, then it must be the King’s business alone. This thinking breeds passivity, turning believers into spectators who are simply waiting for a future event rather than participating in a present task.
The truth is far more active and dignifying. A critical distinction must be made: “It’s the king who establishes the kingdom. It’s his subjects who are responsible for building the kingdom.” God establishes—He sets up, confirms, and ordains—but He calls His people to do the hard labor of construction.
This work is not about quick fixes or overnight revolutions. It is the patient, generational labor of building a society that reflects the King’s authority. It means pursuing “His rule and therefore His laws here on earth as it is in heaven.” This is the call to establish Christian dominion in every sphere of life. This is the task we are meant to put our hands to, transforming our fleeting efforts into contributions toward an eternal structure.
4. Your True Legacy Is a Vision for the Next Generation
The prayer in Psalm 90 ultimately reveals a powerful vision for legacy that transcends our personal accomplishments. Verse 16 states the request in a specific, causal order: “Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.”
The implication is inescapable: for our children to see and experience the glory, majesty, and splendor of God, the current generation must first see and engage in His work. The vision we embrace and the labor we perform today are the very means by which the next generation will come to comprehend the magnificence of their King.
Our true legacy, therefore, is not found merely in what we achieve, but in the vision we embody. When we align our hands with the generational work of building His kingdom, we give our children the greatest possible inheritance: a tangible glimpse of God’s glory that inspires them to serve Him not just as Savior, but as God, Lord, and reigning King.
“It’s our vision and the result of our work that will help our children to have an idea what it really means to serve him as God, as Lord, as Savior and as King.”
Conclusion: From Personal Success to a Kingdom Purpose
This ancient prayer offers a profound shift in perspective. It calls us away from the anxiety of building a fleeting legacy in a short life and invites us into the security of a generational, kingdom-focused purpose. True, lasting significance is found not in making our own name great, but in aligning our hands with the enduring work of building His kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven.
This reorientation changes everything, transforming our daily labor from a pursuit of personal success into a contribution toward a divine and lasting enterprise. It leaves us with a final, orienting question to ponder.
What would change if we began to see every part of our lives—our careers, our families, our communities—as the construction site for a kingdom?
Christian Flat Earth Ministry 