Prayer for Success

Besides the fact that today we will talk about prayer that always leads to success, we will also touch on some interesting things that may seem new and unknown to you, even though you have heard about them many times.

So, today, let's talk about the prayer of Moses.

Psalm 90 is an example of the wisest, most humble, and blessed prayer that leads to success.

I point out from the beginning that there are no mysterious incantations in it, no manipulations of higher powers. It is a prayer of great faith and simply amazing common sense, which can be called nothing else but spiritual wisdom.

The prayer concludes with words about desirable blessings that any of us, I'm sure, would like to have in our own lives as well.

Listen to how Moses ends his prayer:

Let Your work appear to Your servants, And Your glory to their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, And establish the work of our hands for us; Yes, establish the work of our hands. He repeated last phrase twice.

Knowing the story that followed shortly after this prayer, we can say quite responsibly that it reached not just the ear but the very heart of God.

I'm just encouraging and inspiring you. Read Psalm 90. And you will once again plunge into the spiritual world of this prayer book; once again, you will pass the way when the soul simply rests, listening to the moving words of Moses' prayer.

We will dwell only on the main points and talk about what is very important for us to understand and internalize in order for our prayers to reach heaven.

And for that, let's first touch on a little bit of the history and demography of the nation of Israel, which had just come out of Egyptian slavery. These numbers reveal to us the events of those days in a very interesting way.

Moses did his first serious calculation in the desert a year after they came out of Egypt. Well, that's understandable. Before the exodus, there was a lot of another work to do. Everyone was packing their belongings, and each family was responsible for keeping track of their household. No one did a roll call.

And a year after they came out of Egypt, they took a kind of population census, and this is what they got.

Only men 20 years old and older were counted. The main criteria was that they were men fit for war. According to the description of this census in Numbers chapter 1, there were 603,550 such men.

This number did not include the Levites. God said not to number them. They were chosen for a different, special ministry.

But further, in the same book of Numbers, we can find information that, at the time of this census, there were 22,000 Levites, all aged one month and older. So we can say this tribe did not affect the number of children in Israel.

This number did not include women, did not include elderly men because they could not be called fit for war, and did not include children and young people, both girls and boys under 20 years of age.

Therefore 603 thousand men can be so-called gold reserve of the people of Israel at that time. Let's call it by the military term we understand today: mobilization resource.

But the whole society of Israel, which came out of Egypt, plus some other foreigners—all this could sum up to 3 million people. That's almost the population of modern Moldova, Armenia, or Lithuania. Or the population of Estonia and Latvia combined.

Today, there are 242 countries in the world on the list of recognized and unrecognized states, including the Vatican with its 1,000 inhabitants.

Among these countries there are 104 modern countries with populations of less than 3 million. This is all to say that Israel was a very impressive society in those days.

Imagine such a huge number of people walking through the desert who need to be provided with all the basic necessities of life.

This is food, water, waste disposal, and a burial place for the dead. This also includes the most primitive production of industrial goods: knives, spoons, plates, and vessels for storing bulk and liquid goods. And they also managed to produce gold jewelry, sew clothes and shoes. And if you look at the description of the tabernacle, which they made in the desert, you can call it a masterpiece of world art.

It was a nomadic country that, during its 40 years in the wilderness, moved its spiritual and administrative center of government from place to place 43 times. This is how many times (according to Numbers 33) the nation of Israel moved from place to place.

You know this story well, so briefly speaking the people of Israel walked in the wilderness for 40 years because it was God's punishment for their disobedience. The whole story is described in detail in Numbers, chapter 14.

I will only read verses 34 and 35 of this chapter:

According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for each day you shall bear your guilt one year, namely forty years, and you shall know My rejection. I the Lord have spoken this; I will surely do so to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.' "

It's a very sad situation.

Sometimes I imagine myself in their shoes.

Just think about this. If a person is 20 years old or older at the time of the pronouncement of this divine punishment and falls into this category, he knows that he has no more than 40 years to live. So 60 is the maximum of his life, if nothing happens before then.

If a person is 30, he can live longer, for example, up to 70. And if he was 40, his maximum would be 80 years. With a few exceptions, someone could live longer if they were over 40 at the time of the curse. Moses, for example, was over eighty.

You understand now why Moses speaks these words:

The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

This is not a definition for the inhabitants of the whole earth, of all times and nations.

What Moses is talking about in this Psalm applies primarily to the people who walked with him in the wilderness. He is saying that we have a time limit. 40 years. So some will live to be 70, and some will live to be 80.

Sometimes my father, who, thank God, is already over 80, says this: "I have been living by God's grace for several years already, because I have already lived my limit." It’s true as we all can live so long only by God’s grace. But his years have nothing to do with this Moses-defined limit.

It is not the setting of a limit for man's life on earth for all times and nations.

The Japanese, for example, are very actively in defeating this definition.

According to the Basic Register of Japanese Residents, as of September 1, 2022, the number of elderly people aged 100 and older was 90,526. Think about that number. More than 90,000 people in Japan are 100 years old or older.

Moses speaks of his time and his fellow man in the wilderness.

This was God's determination for his people at the time of the wilderness walk.

In that time, in 40 years in the desert, over 1.5 million people will die. All those 603,000 men in their 20s, a very large number of older men who were not included in that list, women, and a large number of child deaths. This means that an average of 37,500 people will die per year, and in a day, more than 100 funerals will have to be held.

Can you imagine that every day the elders, the heads of the families, come to Moses and report how many people have died in their tribe?

Each of them, somewhere in their hearts, is counting the days. How long do we have to walk through this desert? When do we see this long-awaited entry into Canaan?

I remember being in the army. I served two years. In the first few months, it felt like life and time itself had stopped. It's very hard for the mental health. You look at the calendar, and it seemed frozen. We crossed out the days on the calendar and pierced them with a pin. But time went so slow.

All these people walking through the desert were counting the days. How many days do we have left? How many people have already passed away? And at the end of this period of 40 years—it felt like sand in an hourglass—the disobedient people were leaving the earth.

You can imagine the atmosphere that prevailed in Israel.

They spoke out about it very often. They complained; they murmured. Sometimes they rebelled against God and Moses.

If you look around, there were only deserted mountains. Often there was not enough water. And moving 43 times from one place to another is not the most comfortable way of life either.

Moses looks at this whole setting and says to God:

You have set our iniquities before You, Our secret sins in the light of Your countenance. For all our days have passed away in Your wrath; We finish our years like a sigh.

And then he asks:

So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Not just seeing our peers pass away. It's not just rambling on all day long, while looking at deserted mountains and eating the manna for 40 years. Not thinking sadly about time when it's all going to end.

Teach us to count our days and gain a wise heart. This means being able to analyze. See God's presence behind every circumstance and understand why He does what He does.

Many people today are in difficult circumstances in life. There has been a war going on for almost a year and a half now (as of July 2023). People today are counting the days. How many have already passed? No one knows how much is left. The unknown is very depressing for many. When will life get better? When will families be reunited? And when will all this bloody nightmare stop?

How to pray during these kind of days, how to pray today?

We see how right Moses was when he talks about how many people were dying before his eyes:

They are like a sleep. In the morning they are like grass which grows up: In the morning it flourishes and grows up; In the evening it is cut down and withers.

The most proper prayer is, "Lord, teach us to count the days of our lives so that we may acquire a wise heart." All these hardships, all these sufferings, this great number of deaths, all these testimonies of people who have been saved — all this is the environment in which a wise heart must be formed.

The wise heart realizes how fickle life is and how perishable it is, so it’s seriously engaged in matters of eternity.

Solomon once said: “The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor the ear filled with hearing.” Man will always have this thirst for life, eternal life. That is why we must pay such close attention to eternal matters.

Moses asks in this prayer that God have mercy and bless them. See how he says,

Oh, satisfy us early with Your mercy, That we may rejoice and be glad all our days!

Perhaps it has nothing to do with you, but many people are afraid to wake up because the new day means another challenge, another set of problems and difficulties. And there is only one opportunity to escape it at least for a while in a restless sleep.

Moses looks at his people and the desert around him, and at the faces of the people exhausted by their hopeless situation. He asks, "Lord, fill us with your mercy; please do this early in the morning. So that all day long we may be sustained by you. Many of us may not have the chance of entering the Promised Land, but no one can take away our right to be happy with God. No one can take away the right to feel His touch on our hearts and minds. Fill us, Lord, with your grace.”

We, too, can be in such dense places today, in such tough circumstances. Life may seem to be bleak and hopeless. There are very few possibilities. On the contrary, there are many problems and troubles. Everyone has a unique set of problems; and they can multiply.

Like Moses, we should pray the same prayer today: “Lord, help me to have a wise heart. Then I will be able to understand Your will and Your plans. They will not upset me. I will not be aggrieved, thinking that You have forsaken me and do not hear my cries.

Fill me, O Lord, with Your mercy, do it early in the morning. I don't know exactly how You will do it. I only can come to You and open my heart and my soul to You. I do not tell You how You should act or what to do for my well-being. I just came to You in prayer and asked You to give me a wise heart and fill me with Your mercy.

For I know, God, and we all know, when You begin to pour out Your blessings on people, they are innumerable and impossible to count.”

The words of such a prayer will always have meaning. This is our commitment to God. This is our desire: to invite Him to be the director of our lives.

Let such prayer be the meaning of your life. May the wisdom of God teach you how to count the days of your own life. Do not just look at them as sand running between your fingers, but as an opportunity to think about eternal things and to actively participate in the lives of your acquaintances, your friends, and, of course, your own families. To find in simple noble deeds sincere, genuine joy and peace of mind, which will surely lead you to a blessed outcome of your life, when together with the Apostle Paul you will be able to say:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.

Moses' prayer is a prayer for success. It’s not just some instant, one-time success, but the success of an entire life that will last forever.

And for now all that remains for me to do is wish you, as always, blessed days. God be with you.