Number My Days

Number My Days

Hope everyone had a fantastic celebration this past weekend with the 4th of July, and it's good to have you back here. Today's topic is heavy. I am warning you this ahead of time because it could bring up some emotions, and I am asking you to keep reading. I really feel that this message needs to be heard, and so I pray you will follow along this journey.

Our passage this week is found in Psalm 90, with a particular highlight on verses 10-12.

"Our days may come to seventy years,
    or eighty, if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
    for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
¹¹ If only we knew the power of your anger!
    Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.
¹² Teach us to number our days,
    that we may gain a heart of wisdom." Psalm 90:10-12 (NIV)

This is a passage or phrase that I feel many of us have heard before, teach us to number our days. Often this verse is shared in the middle of or right after a time of great sorrow. Our days are numbered and we should take everyone of them as a blessing. I believe that message lies in this passage if you just single out verse 12, but I also believe the scripture gives us another message that is an encouraging note to go alongside this heavy truth.

This chapter in Psalms is subtitled "A prayer of Moses, the man of God" and it is important to know this because it gives us understanding of the passage. It opens up with a hope in God who was here in the beginning and has been the refuge for His people from day one. It also discusses His overall mastery of time and how God has sees our entire lives "like a day that has gone by." 

Then we move into verse 10, where the writer discusses how little strength and control we have over when our time has come to leave this earth. How we can have what we feel is strength, yet it fades so quickly in the grand scheme of life. 

Then we hit the key verse, verse 12. Let us not focus on the first part of the verse this time though, but rather wrestle with the second half. That we may gain a heart of wisdom. The writer ends the passage asking for God to show mercy towards them in this time of suffering. He states that their suffering has been long endured and that they just want relief from this time of pain. "Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us." Why this sudden change in attitude after verse 12?

I believe it is because verse 12 is the bridge between the two places. The writer seems to be praising God in the beginning, and mourning and asking for relief in the second part. Doesn't this seem like our lives today? Life seems to be great and everything is fantastic. Our relationship with God is flourishing, or maybe even sliding to the backburner. Then it happens, you receive that news. A phone call comes that rocks your entire world. That simple drive home at night doesn't go as simply as intended. Then we are left begging God to remove us from the time of pain.

This is a natural feeling. If you are in this time of pain, I want you to first know that God loves you and hasn't abandoned you. He is standing right next to you with arms wide open ready to carry you through this, we just need to keep focusing on His love rather than our affliction. The heart of wisdom is our guiding light in this. You see wisdom helps us in discerning through the tough situations. Wisdom helps an individual make the tough call. Wisdom helps us realize that there will be another time of praise to come, God will make things right again and joy will be in the morning. But it also helps us to see that God doesn't leave during those bad times either. By maintaining and continually pursuing this relationship with God through his word, we can grasp onto this wisdom.

Teach us to number our days, yes, every morning, every breath is a blessing. Some of us didn't expect to be in these hard places right now. But let us receive and embrace this heart of wisdom, so that love may be realized from the God who is master of time.

He loves us so much that He put HIMSELF through a time of pain, so that we could live an eternal life with no more pain. 

Thank you for reading and God bless.