Isaac Watts wrote O God Our Help in Ages Past in 1708, paraphrasing Psalm 90. The hymn became the unofficial anthem of British resilience, sung at the coronation of George V, at state funerals, and in the rubble of London after the Blitz.
Watts takes Moses's long view: a thousand years in God's sight are like a day, like a watch in the night. The human lifetime is brief; our schemes scatter like grass. But God's dwelling place is eternal. The hymn does not lie to us about human frailty; instead it offers a solution. We don't last. God does. Therefore we rest not in ourselves but in a God for whom time is not a prison but a kingdom.
The hymn's genius lies in its refusal to minimize suffering. Sorrows press upon us, and our days are as grass. But sorrows are not the final word. Centuries pass and God remains. A single century from the hymn's writing would see two world wars, yet O God Our Help in Ages Past would still be sung in bombed cathedrals, because Watts's promise proved true: God was still there.