![]() 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. 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.” If you’re like me, you want to defend yourself immediately. It won’t matter in eternity it probably won’t matter next week!įrom time to time we all get criticisms that are not constructive. When you remember to number your days, you realize that someone’s hurtful words cannot affect your numberless days yet to come. You’re not as likely to want retribution, your anger dissipates, your stress goes down. But if you stop and number your days, it changes your reaction. You want to say something bad about him or her in return. Suppose you find out today what someone said about you, and it is untrue, unfair and unkind. ![]() Here’s another illustration of how life-changing it is to number your days aright. Both he and Moses asked God to teach them to number their days to help them live in the knowledge that life is short. “The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.”ĭavid 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 or more remaining in these numbered days, they are very few compared to the numberless days ahead of us. “You have made my days a mere handbreadth the span of my years is as nothing before you. ![]() It is an attitude that has to be learned and imposed into our lives, but when we learn this lesson, we gain a heart of wisdom.Īll 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. Moses prayed “Teach me to number my days,” and we need to sign up for that course as well. That’s what David meant when he prayed, “Let me know how fleeting is my life.” You see, this is an attitude that has to come from God because it is not a natural, human tendency to number our days aright. Would that loss of promotion have much, if any, effect on you? No, I doubt it, because since your days are few, a lost promotion isn’t really important, is it? But suppose you knew you only had five more days here on this earth. That is hurtful and your natural reaction is anger, retribution, self-defense. Let’s say that you learn that a coworker has been given a promotion that you deserve. You see, how you number your days has everything to do with how you live your life! Let me try to illustrate this for you. I would suggest that all of us need to pray this prayer pretty regularly: “Lord, teach me to number my days correctly.” This is God’s method of counting, and it is powerful, once you learn it. So, they prayed for the ability to number their days. They understood that living in the knowledge of how fleeting life is becomes a life-changing attitude, and they recognized that this attitude doesn’t come naturally to anyone. These men of God were not asking for a gift of prophecy, but rather for a change in perspective. “ Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” ![]() “ Show me, O Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days let me know how fleeting my life is.” In fact, most of us live as though our days are without number. But thinking about how many are left-well, that’s not something we think about too often. Oh, we all know the number behind us-how many days we’ve lived already. How many days do you have left? That’s a very sobering, somewhat unsettling question, isn’t it? We don’t like to think about the fact that our days here on this earth are numbered. Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:28 - 19.9MB)
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