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PROGRAM D-7502
All of us tend to live as though these days here on earth are numberless, don’t we? We just don’t naturally think about the fact that our days on earth will not go on forever. But as David wrote in Psalm 39:
“You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath.”
And again in Psalm 103:15-16:
“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.”
David is not telling us that our lives have no meaning, but rather he is reminding us that whether we have five days, five years, or fifty-five years remaining in these numbered days, they are very few compared to the numberless days ahead of us. Both he and Moses asked God to teach them to number their days; to help them live in the knowledge that life is short.
Let me illustrate how life-changing it is to number your days aright. Suppose you find out today what someone said about you, and it is untrue, unfair and unkind. Your feelings are hurt. You want to say something bad about him or her in return. But if you stop and number your days, it changes your reaction. You’re not as likely to want retribution, your anger dissipates, your stress goes down. When you remember to number your days, you realized that someone’s hurtful words cannot affect your numberless days yet to come.
From time to time we all get criticisms that are not constructive. If you’re like me, you want to defend yourself immediately. But God is teaching me to number my days when I’m criticized unfairly and say to myself: “What difference does it make, Mary? Life is short; you have other eternally important things to do.” Then I can let it go and get on with doing important things that matter rather than wasting time and energy on something inconsequential.
In Psalm 90 Moses prayed: “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” When you number your days correctly, it makes you wise rather than foolish, it reduces your stress, it saves your energy, it causes you to react correctly, it gives you the upper hand in any situation.