As a father has compassion

"As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord's love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children's children, with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts."Psalm 103:13-18

After measuring love against the sky and the horizon, David changes scale. He brings it home: "as a father has compassion on his children." Picture a good father watching his little child fall. He doesn't scold the child for the fall. He runs. God's compassion is like that: not the compassion of a judge who evaluates, but of a father who lifts you up.

And verse 14 explains why, in one of the most tender sentences in the Bible: "he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust." God knows what you are made of. He knows you get tired, that you forget, that you break. He is not surprised by your weakness. He knows it better than you do, and that is why he has compassion instead of losing patience.

Verses 15 and 16 are hard and honest: life is like grass, like a flower of the field. The wind blows over it, and it's gone, and its place remembers it no more. David isn't being pessimistic. He's being truthful. We pass. The things we carry with so much weight pass. And that is exactly where the "But" of verse 17 comes in.

"But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord's love is with those who fear him." The flower lasts one season. His love has no beginning and no end. And it reaches "their children's children": what God does in your life today doesn't stop with you. It reaches the people you love, and the people they will love. You are dust, yes. Dust that a Father knows, lifts up and blesses for generations.