Advent Devotional December 19, 2026

Scripture

Psalm 90

A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.

1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place
    in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth
    or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
    from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

3 You turn us back to dust
    and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”
4 For a thousand years in your sight
    are like yesterday when it is past
    or like a watch in the night.

5 You sweep them away; they are like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning;
6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
in the evening it fades and withers.

7 For we are consumed by your anger;
by your wrath we are overwhelmed.
8 You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your countenance.

9 For all our days pass away under your wrath;
    our years come to an end like a sigh.
10 The days of our life are seventy years
    or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;
even then their span is only toil and trouble;
    they are soon gone, and we fly away.

11 Who considers the power of your anger?
Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.
12 So teach us to count our days
that we may gain a wise heart.

13 Turn, O Lord! How long?
    Have compassion on your servants!
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
    so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us
    and as many years as we have seen evil.
16 Let your work be manifest to your servants
    and your glorious power to their children.
17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us
    and prosper for us the work of our hands—
    O prosper the work of our hands!

Devotion

The Rev. Chesna Hinkley, Doctor of Ministry Student, Reformed Focus

The Lord has been our dwelling place, and we prepare to be the dwelling place of the Lord. The baby is welcomed in his mother’s womb, growing from cells and nucleotides of incarnation, mysteriously glorious, but fragile as ours are, tending toward degeneration. He is welcomed, but perhaps only by his mother. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him.

The psalmist beseeches the Lord to satisfy us with love. In this present age, to be full of love, adoring and adored without remainder, is not comprehensible. Uncontingent safety, home without future exile from home, beauty that will not become nostalgia, radical hospitality of spirit, the almost painful love toward your most beloved, painful because you cannot grasp and hold them as they are forever, unchanged in all their dazzling glory—all of this is love unsatisfied, even in the morning of life. Yet joys with weeping are joys all the same. And they are a true foretaste of the glad days that will so outnumber the days of God’s hand of affliction.

We dwell in him because he first determined to dwell in us. Gentle and humble in heart, this consuming fire is uninhibited love. In one Person without confusion of natures, Christ the light comes, the work of God manifest, the glorious power to our children. Because of this we too may be united with Consuming Love, satisfied one coming day in all our good and just loves—in our Lord, and in his Body. Behold, your King cometh unto thee.

Prayer

O Uncreated Light, shining Beacon of home, Anchor for the soul, as I flourish and fade, with all that I love, teach me to number my days, so that I may be wise. Receive me as I receive You, with incandescent love and the hope of the age to come.

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