It is like smoke. In verse six the psalmist compares his experience to that of a lonely bird inhabiting the ruins. Spurgeon likens this verse to our position in the last hundred years in a declining Church. As the Church, which was once taken up in verse ten and then thrown aside, we can certainly appreciate the general decline in orthodoxy and spirituality. The taunt of enemies is increasing, the actions of biblical Christians are cursed.
Truth is labeled falsehood and grievous sin has become the established normality.
One Christian commentator observed ten years ago, that the worst of the Sodomites are more welcome at Washington parties than the least offensive of evangelical Christians. Like Christ's very human experience we of His Church appear to be like the evening shadow and the world waits for us to wither away like grass. In these words, the psalmist turns the corner from experience to expectation. Our psalmist expects the reality of Christ's eventual triumph, even as the author of Hebrews places these prayerful words into the mouth of Jesus. In Him was the appointed time which came.