By Claude Fong Toy
NZCMS Board Member

At my parish, St Elizabeth’s Clendon Park, we’ve been focus­ing on enter­ing into this new cal­en­dar year 2026 with four great invitations:

• Finding Rest in God
• Having a Song of the Redeemer in our Hearts
• A Heart’s Posture of Surrender
• Seeing Everything Through the Lens of the Gospel.

This article is about Finding Rest in God by reflect­ing on Psalm 90.

This psalm is attrib­uted to Moses at one of the most con­front­ing moments of his life. After forty years of leading God’s people through the wil­der­ness, he stands within sight of the prom­ised land and God tells him he will not cross over. Someone else will finish what he started. Moses states some remark­able con­vic­tions fol­low­ing that.

“Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” (Psalm 90:1–2)

Even after the news that he will not enter the prom­ised land, he begins his prayer: “Lord, you have been our dwell­ing place through­out all generations….”

Not bit­ter­ness. Not col­lapse. Rest. A settled, unshake­able rest. Not because Moses got what he worked for, but because he had learned that God Himself was His home. Not the des­tin­a­tion. Not the outcome. God Himself.

That is the posture this Psalm invites us into as a NZCMS community.  That is where we begin. Not with our agenda. Not with our challenges. But with the everlasting God, the God who was before the mountains, before time itself, and who remains faithful long after our best efforts have run their course.

Who God Is, and Who We Are

Moses places God and human­ity side by side so we can see clearly what is true.

“Before the moun­tains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from ever­last­ing to ever­last­ing you are God.” (Psalm 90:2)

“Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” (Psalm 90:10)

God is eternal, bound­less and unlim­ited. We are not. We are creatures, made from dust, return­ing to dust and given a brief span of years that pass more quickly than we expect. The season of Lent reminds us of this. This is not a counsel of despair. It is a gift of clarity.

The great tempta­tion for people who care deeply (and we would not be part of the NZCMS whānau if we didn’t care) is to live as though we don’t have limits. To carry more than we were designed to carry. To feel respons­ible for out­comes that only God can secure.

The theo­lo­gian Kelly Kapic, in his book You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News, puts it plainly:

“Our unreal­istic expect­a­tions show that we actu­ally imagine we are God. We act as if we should never grow weary or tired, that we could and should always do more and be more.”

That hits close to home.

The NZCMS community are full of people who have often stayed when others have left. We have people who support, go and volunteer in so many committed capacities. Who said yes when it would have been easier to say no. 

And that faithfulness is real and good. But we must remember that love without rest becomes resentment. Faithfulness without limits becomes burnout.

Moses names some­thing beneath all of this in verse 8 of Psalm 90:

“You have set our iniquit­ies before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.”

He is point­ing to the hidden anxi­et­ies that drive us harder than wisdom allows. Because when we are not resting in God, we find rest some­where else. In our com­pet­ence. Our record. Our indis­pens­ab­il­ity. And when that’s the found­a­tion, rest becomes impossible. Because there is always more to prove.

The Gift Hidden in Our Limits

Here is the sur­pris­ing grace at the heart of Psalm 90: our limits are not a weak­ness in our design. They are a gift.

As a Board member, I am the first to acknow­ledge that the work of the NZCMS Board matters enorm­ously. The decisions we make shape the life of our staff, Mission Part­ners, sup­port­ers, and every­one con­nec­ted to us. But this work is not only ours. It belonged to Jesus before any of us arrived, and it will belong to Him long after we’ve handed on our responsibilities.

We are stewards, not saviours. The moment we forget that distinction, the weight becomes unbearable.

This is what Moses means when he prays:

“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)

To number our days is to take each day for what it is — as a gift. Finite and pre­cious. Entrus­ted to us by God. It is releas­ing the illu­sion of control. Recog­nising that we cannot do everything. Fix everything. Foresee everything. And that this is not failure, it is the truth about creatures in the hands of a faith­ful Creator.

Moses ends the Psalm with this:

“May the favour of the Lord our God rest on us; estab­lish the work of our hands for us — yes, estab­lish the work of our hands.” (Psalm 90 ‑17)

He does not stop working. He is releas­ing the outcome. We will do the work faith­fully, but Lord, you make it count.

That is the posture of rest: not the absence of effort, but effort held with open hands.

And this extends beyond this table into every part of our lives. Our homes. Our mar­riages. Our work­places. Our health.

When Moses prays in verse 14, “satisfy us in the morning with your unfail­ing love”, he is asking to be filled before the day’s respons­ib­il­it­ies arrive. Not with energy or clarity but with God’s unfail­ing love. God’s unfail­ing love that holds us when out­comes dis­ap­point, when efforts go unre­cog­nised and when tired­ness runs deeper than our sleep can fix.

Jesus himself extends this invitation:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

Not rest from respons­ib­il­ity. But rest for our souls. The deep, settled peace of people who know they are held by Someone who never tires and never lets go.

Let’s bring our whole selves, limits and all. Let’s be honest and humble rather than per­form­ing cer­tainty we don’t feel. Let’s hold the out­comes loosely. Some of what we do today will bear fruit we may never see, and that is enough.

Whatever our role in the NZCMS community, let our service itself be an act of trust, not in our collective wisdom alone, but in the God who called this community into being and will complete what He has started here. 

We are not the last line of defence. Jesus holds this work. We can do our work with open hands and we do the work by constantly returning in finding rest in God.

Closing Prayer

Lord, you have been our dwell­ing place through­out all generations.

We come to you car­ry­ing more than we often say. Con­cerns about this. Ques­tions about the future. The weight of decisions that affect real people. Tired­ness from the many places we give ourselves. We open our hands and hearts.

Teach us to number our days. Help us receive our limits as the mercy they are, a reminder that we are not God, and that this is good news, because God is faith­ful and we are held.

May your favour rest on us today.

Take what we offer, our judg­ment, our care, our time, our love for NZCMS, and estab­lish the work of our hands for your Kingdom. Satisfy us with your unfail­ing love, so that whatever is required of us, we can give from a place of rest rather than a place of fear.

In Jesus’ name, amen.