Shake off your dust;
       rise up, sit enthroned, O Jerusalem.
       Free yourself from the chains on your neck,
       O captive Daughter of Zion. Isaiah 52:2

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For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
       so great is his love for those who fear him;

as far as the east is from the west,
       so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

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.

As for man, his days are like grass,
       he flourishes 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 103:11-18

He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor.
    "For the foundations of the earth are the LORD's; upon them he has set the world." - 1 Samuel 2:8
   
He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap - Psalm 113:7

Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath ; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?"

Ecclesiastes 3:19-21

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For me it's a reminder of the preciousness and fleetingness of life. We are all divinely inflated dirt clods who rely on the breath of our creator to hold us together. But though we come from the dust, and return to the dust, there is an importance about our lives here. There is something that will transcend our dirt existence, something significant that we can influence here and now.

Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward? God in Jesus shows us that in him and him alone we may decent to the heights of heaven. That in him we are reconciled to our Heavenly Father, and in his eyes we are so much more than the dust.