Teach Us to Number Our Days

Shocking news came earlier this year-the kind remembered as to where and when you first heard it. On July 13, a former U.S. president and then-presidential candidate came within millimeters of assassination. Just the momentary turning of his head made the difference between life and death. It's amazing how one moment in time can alter our existence.

As events settled, many wondered how it might transform the candidate's demeanor and if it would alter the divisive political discourse in the country. But there's more here for each of us to contemplate personally.

It's always easier to put others under the microscope rather than ourselves. But let's consider our own lives and allow this close call to serve as a personal wake up call-reflecting on how truly fragile and temporary our precious allotted time here and now is to heed Jesus Christ's invitation of "Follow Me" (Matthew 4:19, emphasis added throughout). Let's ask ourselves a simple but profound question: How would we live today if we knew there was no tomorrow for us?

Here's a story to help make the point. A man had a medical checkup with a follow-up appointment to review results. The doctor said he had bad news and worse news and asked what the patient wanted to hear first. "The bad news" was the calm reply. So the doctor said the bad news was that the patient had only 24 hours to live. The now-distraught man jumped up and cried out: "Only 24 hours to live?! I can't possibly get my affairs in order that quickly. What news could possibly be worse than this?" The doctor responded, "I was supposed to tell you yesterday, but I forgot!"

Like the patient, we can come to think we're immune to the brevity of life, accepting the certainty of "death and taxes" but only for everyone else. Yet the One we follow is not like the forgetful doctor. He has already addressed our condition and specially inspired Moses in Psalm 90:12 to prescribe the healthy, realistic regimen we need His help in: "Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."

How will we "fill in the dash"?

Consider for a moment that tombstones are typically engraved with dates of birth and death. God defines a general range of life expectancy when Moses states, "The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years . . ." (Psalm 90:10). But what about "the dash" stretching between the inscribed dates? God alone knows the actual length of that dash for each of us (Job 14:5; Psalm 139:16). Within our personal dash connecting life and death is the space in which we learn to love, repent, experience forgiveness from Above, exercise forgiveness and abide in faith-filled hope here below. And we are to grow beyond the moment when the invitation of "Follow Me" first came our way.

Once again, let us probe the question as to whether dramatic brushes with death change people. You would hope so, but we need go no further than the Egyptian pharaoh who opposed God's demand of "Let My people go!" to see that people can be very stubborn in their ways. God continued to send one plague after another on his empire. At a given point, Pharaoh's own magicians declared to him, "This is the finger of God" (Exodus 8:19). But the high and mighty "god-man" did not heed, and the rest is history.

Nearly a millennium later, King Belshazzar of Babylon, at a pagan banquet as recorded in Daniel 5, was stopped in his tracks when he saw a finger writing on a wall a message of God's judgment. The inscription proclaimed, "mene, mene, tekel, upharsin," interpreted to mean "God has numbered your kingdom, and finished it . . . You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting . . . Your kingdom has been divided, and given to the Medes and Persians" (Daniel 5:25-28). Belshazzar did not repent. He put more trust in the mighty walls of Babylon than "the finger of God."

On the other hand, do brushes with life change people-change us? Consider three men who came near to Christ in literally conversing with this One who is "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6) and being offered His personal invitation of "Follow Me." Each had a humanly reasonable excuse for avoiding commitment in returning to everyday life and did so (Luke 9:57-62). Perhaps as you read this column you are at the conversant level with Christ, but He wants more than your ears. He wants your heart and total allegiance to Him!

Let's consider another candidate for discipleship, Saul of Tarsus, who encountered the risen Christ on the road to Damascus in Acts 9. Struck by blindness, a great inner light was given birth in him. He would never be the same. Saul, who would become the apostle Paul, experienced a total alteration of life through the touch of Christ's finger in his life.

How to gain a heart of wisdom

How then might we personally "gain a heart of wisdom," as stated in Psalm 90 ? Consider that the One who appeared to Paul, Jesus Christ, was later defined by this same changed man as "the wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24,30). Allow me to share principles in three scriptural passages touching on how to draw on this divine wisdom through what Christ preached and practiced-and encourages in us now!

1. Prioritize what's most important.

The One who bids us "Follow Me" shares a parable in Luke 12:16-21 outlining what occurs when we don't "number our days." He describes a wealthy man focused on living at ease with abundance of food and enjoyment and accumulated goods while his Creator was merely a distant afterthought. The man thought he had many years left to enjoy, but his life was going to end that night.

Contemplate how this person would have reordered his priorities if he thought more about his days being limited. He would not have allowed what seemed urgent in the moment to crowd out preparing to meet his Maker. May we-each of us "a ball of dust on two legs" who returns to the ground-learn from this parable that none of us knows how many days we will be granted, so we must not waste them on selfish pursuits that have no eternal significance!

2. Work on what you've been called to while you can.

Jesus practiced what He preached! He realized His earthly ministry was not endless, but would last a few short years leading up to the Passover in which He would die as "the Lamb of God." He proclaimed in John 9:4, "I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work." Christ as "the Son of Man" was not gloom ridden but spiritually realistic in each step and precious moment in which He drew breath.

3. Make the most of your time.

Paul sounds a note of alarm in Ephesians 5:14-17 with a wake-up call to the preciousness of time-here and now, this moment. The living and written Word, Jesus Christ through the Holy Scriptures, shine light from Above on the importance of making every moment count now, as tomorrow may never come or be too late to grasp what God is offering.

As Paul writes: "Therefore He says: ‘Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.' See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time [gaining value in that specific moment of harvest while the productive yield is viable] because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is." Here, then, is the path to true wisdom.

So the question remains that only you can answer: How will you utilize the moments ahead-or this moment that could be your last-to enrich your dash of existence? While the clock is still ticking, may we all "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18), as we embrace His invitation of "Follow Me." Until next time-God willing!

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Follow Me: "Teach Us to Number Our Days"

A life-and-death moment should lead us to reflect on what we are doing with the life we've been given. Properly considering the time we have-and don't have-brings wisdom.

How will we "fill in the dash"?

How to gain a heart of wisdom