March 10
Numbering our Days
"Teach us to number our days"
Psalm 90:12
There's an aged old saying for women that goes something like this: "You'll put your hand through your sleeve one day and out will come your mother's hand". It's strange to the ear when we first here it, but as it sinks in, the light of understanding begins to dawn. One day before we know it time will have passed so very quickly and we will stand in wonder of it. Look at your hands and you will see the passing of time delicately written out in every line on every bend of finger. It's something that is before our eyes everyday yet we hardly notice it. Much it is with the passing of time. Even as you sit and read these few lines time is passing. Moments that will forever be lost never to be regained again. There are moments in our lives when the gravity of this truth weighs greater upon our minds than at other times.
Maybe when a child stepped onto a big yellow school bus for the first time with sheer excitement and you thought that it was just yesterday that they had learned to walk. Maybe when you drove away from leaving your child at college for the first time and you thought your heart would just break in two for it was just yesterday that they had stepped onto that big yellow school bus. Maybe it was with the passing of a parent or spouse and the passing of time weighed upon you like a heavy stone. Time can not be measured for we do not know how much time we have. It can not be stopped because God set it in motion long before you were ever born. It can not be bought and it can never be replaced. No moment in time is exactly like the one before it nor like the one that will follow it.
The psalmist understood this truth. That time is fleeting and will pass as quickly as the wind. Understanding this he cried out to the Lord for Him to teach him how to number his days. To see each day as if it were priceless and as if it were the last. To understand that with each new day comes opportunities that may never come again. To embrace them as a gift from the hand of God. Each one counted out by His hands and according to His perfect design. By nature we will waste our lives away. Recognize as the Psalmist did the need for God to help you to number the days that He does give you.
Embrace the day at hand. Name it don't claim it for it doesn't belong to you it belongs to the one who commanded the sun to rise and shine its face upon it. Name the day as "belonging to the Lord." This day will never come again. Count it as priceless and bless the Lord in it.