“Bible prayers: Teach us to number our days”
Psalm 90:12
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
An elderly couple was having a little trouble remembering things, or so the story goes, so they decided to see their doctor to make sure everything was okay. When they arrived at the doctor’s office, they explained the problems they were having with their memory.
After running a few tests, the doctor told them that they were physically alright, but suggested that they might want to start writing things down--making notes to help them remember. The couple thanked the doctor and left.
Later that night, while watching TV, as the old man got up from his chair, his wife asked, “Where are you going?”
He replied, “To the kitchen.”
She asked, “Would you please get me a bowl of ice cream?”
“Sure,” he answered.
His wife added, “Don’t you think you should write it down, so you can remember it?”
“No,” he answered. “I can remember it.”
“Well, I also would like some strawberries on top. You better write that down, because I know you’ll forget,” his wife said.
“I can remember it. You want a bowl of ice cream with strawberries on top.”
Then she said, “Well, I also would like some whipped cream on top. I know you’ll forget that. You better write it down.”
With a hint of irritation in his voice, he said, “I don’t need to write it down. I can remember it--ice cream, strawberries, and whipped cream.”
About twenty minutes later, he returned from the kitchen with a plate of bacon and eggs.
She stared at the plate for a moment and said, “You forgot my toast.”
Or think of an elderly woman who bought a line of expensive cosmetics guaranteed, the label said, to make her look years younger. And after sitting down in front of her mirror applying all the “miracle” products, she asked, “Darling, honestly, what age would you say I am?”
Looking over her carefully, he replied, “Well, judging from your skin, twenty; your hair, eighteen; and your figure, twenty-five.”
“Oh, you flatterer!” she gushed.
“Hey, wait a minute!” he interrupted. “I haven’t added all of them up yet!”
Or think of the words of George Burns. He said, “Tennis is a young man’s game. Until you’re twenty-five, you can play singles. From twenty-five to thirty-five, you can play doubles. I won’t tell you exactly how old I am, but last time I played, there were twenty-eight men on the court--just on my side of the net.”
The Bible has a lot to say about old age. The prophet Isaiah wrote, “Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you” (Isaiah 46:4). A man named Asaph wrote in Psalm 73: “My flesh and my heart may fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:26). And Paul wrote to the Philippians: “And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).
So it is in the words of today’s Bible prayer, Psalm 90. I’ll start at verse 1: “A prayer of Moses, the man of God. Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God. You return man to dust and say, ‘Return, O children of man!’ For a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers” (Psalm 90:1-6).
“The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away” (Psalm 90:10).
“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).
If you know anything about the book of Psalms, you know that it’s the Bible’s hymnbook. It’s a collection of songs written by as many as six different men over a period of several centuries.
And while it’s one book of the Bible, it’s also divided into five different parts. Book 1 includes Psalm 1-41, Book 2 includes Psalm 42-72, Book 3 is Psalm 73-89, Book 4 is 90-106, and Book 5 is 107-150. And, interestingly enough, at the end of each “book,” you’ll find both a doxology and a benediction: “Blessed be the Lord forever! Amen and Amen.”
Also you should know that Psalm 90 doesn’t come from David or Asaph or the sons of Korah. This one comes from Moses, making it one of the oldest psalms of all!
And notice it doesn’t say, “A psalm of Moses,” nor does it say, “A song.” Instead, it says, “A Prayer.” It’s a deep, intimate, and heartfelt opening up and a pouring out of a man of God to God. As he said in verse 1: “Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.”
Even more, we can’t say for sure exactly when he wrote it. Some guess it was at the very beginning of the forty years of wandering through the wilderness. Others guess it was towards the end.
But if it’s true that it was towards the end, then this psalm can mean so much more.
Think about it--for forty years, Moses had led his people, God’s people, out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, all the way to the Promised Land--forty years of struggle, hardship, victory, defeat, and failure. Time after time, the people doubted him, questioned him, and even outright fought against him. And time after time, God was faithful to provide everything they could possibly need--bread in the morning, meat in the evening, and a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
And because of their complete lack of trust and disobedience, God was determined that none of them should enter the promised land, except two--Joshua and Caleb. And assuming that a million had come out of Egypt, that means that Moses witnessed, on average, eighty funerals a day! As one commentator wrote, “No longer did he wear the ‘rosy spectacles of youth.’ Now he was a man overwhelmed by death.”
And so he prayed in the words of verse 1: “Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God” (Psalm 90:1-2). And verse 12: “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).
It seems that we talk about time quite a lot. As one author wrote, if your age is fifteen, the time is 10:25 a.m. If your age is thirty, the time is 1:51 p.m. If you’re forty, the time is 4:08 in the afternoon. If you’re fifty, the time is 6:25 in the evening. If you’re sixty, the time is 8:42. And if you’re seventy, the time is eleven o’clock at night.
We even sing about time. Jim Croce once wrote a song called, Time in a Bottle. He said: “If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I’d like to do, is to save every day till eternity passes away, just to spend them with you.” A group called Kansas sang, “Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind. Everything is dust in the wind.” And another group called Five for Fighting sang, “There’s never a wish better than this, when you only got a hundred years to live.”
Think about it like this--imagine for a moment that you, out of the blue, received a letter in the mail, from a place called, “Life Bank.” And in that letter, they say they’re happy to inform you that, every day for the rest of your life, someone will be kind enough to deposit $86,400 into an account that bears your name.
But the letter also states that there are a couple of catches. First, you can’t carry over any balance from one day to the next, for what you fail to use each day will be deleted from your account. What’s here today will be gone tomorrow. And second, you can’t borrow from the next day’s deposit.
But the real sticker is that, at any time, without any warning, the bank holds the right to close your account and perform an audit to assess just how you used the funds in your account. And depending on that audit, you’ll either be penalized or rewarded.
If I were you, I’d want to put every penny to good use, and not waste even one red cent!
And if truth be known, God has gifted every one of us with 86,400, not dollars, but seconds--no more and no less. We can’t borrow against tomorrow, nor can we go back and retrieve wasted moments from yesterday. What we do not use wisely and carefully today will be lost forever. And since there is an unannounced day coming for each and every one of us, it makes absolute sense to consider just how we might wisely use every second of every day.
As another put it, “To realize the value of one year, ask a student who failed a grade. To realize the value of one month, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby. To realize the value of one week ask a writer of a weekly newspaper. To realize the value of one day, ask an applicant who missed a job interview. To realize the value of one hour, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet. To realize the value of one minute, ask the person who just missed his plane. To realize the value of one second, ask a person who has survived an accident. To realize the value of one millisecond, ask the person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics.”
So whether we are on time, out of time, pressed for time, having a bad time, or just racing against time, we think that, maybe next time, there will still be time until, one day, our time is up. Time is, after all, of the essence. All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that God has given us.
Or as Moses wrote in the words of Psalm 90: “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away…So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:10, 12).
Are you worried that God doesn’t have time for us? He’s been “our dwelling place in all generations.” From everlasting to everlasting, He is God.
Are you worried He doesn’t have the strength? He brought forth the mountains and formed the earth and the world. A thousand years in His sight are like a day just gone by.
Are you worried He doesn’t have the love? He so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.
Do you know who amazes me? Jesus does! Though He was on the earth for such a short time--only thirty-three years--He accomplished so much in even that short span of time. For even though He was so busy, He still took the time to teach just one woman at the well, to bless some little children, and to speak to a man sitting high up in a tree.
And even better, when the fullness of time had come, (Galatians 4:4), He took the time to suffer and die for you and me.
As Paul wrote to the Romans: “One will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die--but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:7-8).
And so we give thanks to God.
O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, be Thou our guard while troubles last, and our eternal home, for Jesus’ sake. Amen