Teach Us to Number Our Days
My nana, Margaret Louise, recently passed away and as is the case, death often gives us reason to pause and ponder. As family traveled in and we gathered to celebrate her life, I was reminded of all the daily blessings we enjoy, but regularly take for granted. One of those is that we readily assume that there will always be a tomorrow.
As a pastor, I had the privilege of being asked to conduct the graveside service for my nana. I went into this opportunity realizing it’s a once-in-a-lifetime request to get to speak at your nana’s graveside service. I prayed that the Lord would direct my mind and heart toward a passage of Scripture that every single person needed to hear and ponder. It’s not every day that you get the ear of all your family at once!
My nana passed away on a Friday morning and the service was scheduled for the following Monday. On Sunday morning, as I was taking a shower and getting ready for the day, I was thinking about what I would say at the graveside. Immediately Psalm 90:12 came to my mind, “So teach us to number our days…” As a kid going to Christian school and college, on occasion a special speaker would come and give some admonition concerning how we ought to use our days that we had been given.
I couldn’t help but think of this reality in light of the truth that my nana’s days had come to an end. I remember stepping out of the shower and calling out to Alexa (Amazon’s artificial intelligence) to work out a math problem for me: “Hey Alexa, what is 89 times 365 plus 13 (my Nana has celebrated her birthday just two weeks prior to her passing).” She replied, “Thirty-two thousand, five hundred, eighteen.” That was my nana’s number! That was the total of her days!
Nana’s days were numbered, and so are yours and mine—are you ready? I began to meditate on that truth, “so teach us to number our days.” And I immediately thought of James’ admonition in James 4 that tells us our lives are nothing more than a vapor that appears for a short time and then vanishes. That was it, this was the thing that I knew God would have me share with my family and friends who joined us at the graveside. We must remember that our lives are short. They’re just that mist, that vapor that appears for a brief moment and then vanishes away.
Look for God’s blessings in the good days and the bad. As I continued to think about this spiritual truth, I realized that in all of Nana’s days there were “good” days and “bad” days; “easy” days and “hard” days. I immediately thought of Job, who in the midst of some of the greatest human tragedy ever recorded said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 12:1) In every day that we’ve been given, whether we label it “good” or “bad,” we must never forget God is sovereign and He is in control, and we must remind ourselves of His innumerable blessings.
What you do with your days matters. While we may not know the exact number of our days, we can be certain that when they come to an end, we will stand before the Creator and give an account for how we spent our days. At the end of it all, how you live your life—that is who you worship and who sits on the throne of your heart—matters. Paul admonishes us in 2 Corinthians 5:10 that there is a day of accountability to come: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”
My days and your days will count for something—are you ready to make them count for eternity? Just as it was for my Nana, so too in our lives there is a time that God has appointed for each of us. My prayer and hope for you is that you will be prepared.
To learn more about how you can be prepared for eternity and ensure you are ready to meet your maker, click below to watch a brief video and learn about what Christ did to secure you a home in heaven.