Daily Manna · Day 337 · December 3
Everlasting Kingdom
“Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.”
A grandmother and her nine-year-old grandson are washing the dishes together while the news plays in the next room.
The boy asks, "Is it going to be all right?"
His grandmother asks, "Which part?"
"All of it. They keep saying it is the worst it has ever been."
"They said that when I was your age. I remember exactly where I was standing."
"And was it?"
"It was very bad. But I am still here washing dishes, and the world is still here too. And the man who said it on the news is dead now."
That conversation is closer to what this psalm is doing than most people notice. The psalm is full of passing things on from one generation to the next. Nine verses earlier it says, "One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts." Then today's verse says, "thy dominion endureth throughout all generations." The Hebrew behind "all generations" literally repeats the word: every generation and generation. It names the generations one after another, as if counting them off.
That is the comparison the psalm offers. Governments get their generation. They get their turn and their big headlines on the front page, and then they hand power to somebody else. The psalm is not sneering at them. It is simply setting a longer clock in the room. God's rule is never handed on to anyone. It has already lasted through every era that has frightened anyone alive, including the times that really were the end of the world for the people living in them.
So the bad news will keep coming all night if you let it, and nobody is going to switch it off for you. You can still choose a stopping point. Give it twenty minutes, then turn it off, and say one sentence as you do: His kingdom outlasts this. Your own generation is the only one you were given, so there is something small in it with your name on it. Pray for your neighbours, or call your mother. God's kingdom will still be standing tomorrow, and so will His care for you.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 337 is Except the LORD (Psalm 127:1).