Psalms 90:12
So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
When I was 45 years old my father was 70 and my grandfather was 91; both in seemingly good health. I saw life as a long path that was going to last forever. Then, within a matter of months, my father died then, a few months later, my grandfather died. So, I was still 45 but now I was the patriarch, the oldest male with the most life experiences in my immediate family. There was no more father’s advice, no wise owl to ask the hard questions to. I then begin to think into the future to consider how long I would live. If I were to die at 70, like my father, I would only have another 25 years. I wondered, if at 45 if my father had known that he had only 25 more years to live, would he have made any changes?
James 4:14
Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
As we all grow older, we have points that make us realize something is different. It could be the graying hair of our parents , an illness or tragedy, or it could be a birthday; either ours or our children’s. Everyone of us, at some point in our lives, realize that we are not going to live forever. God sends to each of us distinct moments that become significant. They are surreal moments that seem suspended in time, just waiting for us to get there. They are moments that reflect His hand on our lives. They let us know that we are on course, or they give us a wake up call to start paying attention. It is at these points that God is showing us that we need to number our days.
In the movie “Groundhog’s Day” Phil Conners is an arrogant, egocentric weather man, played by actor Bill Murray. Phil gets stuck in a time loop on Groundhog’s Day, waking up on the same day over and over. At first he takes advantage of it, robbing an armored car, kidnapping the groundhog and just living it up. Then, after many days of repeating the same day over and over, he begins to realize that it’s not a joke and that there has to be a greater purpose. So, in order to impress Rita, his producer, he starts on a course of self-improvement. He stops being so self absorbed and starts reaching out to help others. He starts analyzing every moment of that day, understanding accidents he can prevent and seeing the needs of people around the city. Then, after days on end of improving himself (including piano lessons) he sets his course to help others. Finally he gets the day right, breaks the pattern and wakes up in the next day, now a much more humbled and better person.
No matter what our age, life continues to present us with a full array of situations that test our motives and abilities. It is in the failed tests of life’s situations that we look back at our actions or words with disgust, regret, or even guilt, but, if we continue to live, God in His sovereignty over our lives, will set up a do-over. This time it will be a bigger audience, maybe with different people or different circumstances. We will recognize the test even if those around us do not. The question then will be, did we learn wisdom and understanding from our last failure, or do we need to advance to an even bigger test? These tests come through people or situations and will keep showing up till we get them right.
In order to try to get through life and through these tests, we have to understand wisdom. Wisdom is seeing life through God’s eyes, understanding life the way He understands it. There was a popular song as I was growing up in the early 70’s, “Walk a Mile in my Shoes.” The meaning of the title and the song was basically: if you want to understand me and my actions, then go where I go, do what I do, see what I see. So, in order to apply our hearts to wisdom, we have to “walk a mile in God’s shoes”. We have to be able to look through His eyes and see what he sees.
Our lives now are deluged with the logic and thoughts of this world. We are offered so many wrong opinions, disinformation and a continual flow of stupidity. People justify every wrong decision one after another. Shows on tv are propped up with lies and deceit, and we take them in like they are our best friends. Usually after something bad happens to a person, following months of their horrible choices, they will ask the question “where was God when I needed Him?” In a large percentage of our homes in America, He was laying on the coffee table with dust on the cover. Wisdom is a journey that some people never start.
John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The Bible is His Word. He sent this Word to past generations. He also brought it to our generation to be used for our time. God created the universe, designed our world, prescribed our lives before we were born. So, if we are applying ourselves to seeing through Gods eyes, then the lens we should be using is His Word. Wisdom comes through experience and learning. We have to look at each trial as an opportunity to discover something new about God and about ourselves. Sometimes that could be a negative attitude that we have developed, or maybe it could be a gift or talent that is locked up inside us. Each trial is there for our benefit; God working His eternal plan through our daily lives.
2 Corinthians 4:17
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
The more we get to know God and allow Him to work in our lives, the more we begin to understand His eternal and spiritual nature. His goal for our lives is to develop our inner being (spirit and soul) to the point that we become a living translation of His Son, Jesus Christ. Through our numbered days of tests and conflicts His eternal wisdom is our only resolution.
Only in the movies do we get to live the same day over and over again. Our days are numbered, let us apply our hearts to wisdom.