Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12
This is not a request to help us be good mathematicians. It is not a request to become a prognosticator of doom, or of our own demise. This is a confession, a prayerful acknowledgement that our life is allotted time. The point isn’t simply that our days will soon end. Moses has already affirmed that the days of our lives are seventy years, and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their span is only toil and trouble.
Moses knew something of death. For forty years he was the pastor of a congregation of over a million people. Every one of his people over the age of twenty died in the wilderness in that forty year time span. The bells tolled for dozens of his people daily. The desert was literally strewn with the graves of his congregation. He knew about death.
But Moses also knew something about life. What Moses wants us to fix our minds on is what really matters: that our time is allotted time. Our Creator God has given us time. And our times are in His hand. The question is: how will we use that time?
This week my thoughts were drawn to these words of Moses inspired by the Holy Spirit. This was an unusual week for me. It began by sitting in a conference room in the University of Minnesota Children’s hospital with tension filled dear friends listening to a heart transplant team speak matter-of-factly about the process of a possible heart transplant for their fourteen year old son. I have known this young man since the day he was born. Jacob was born with half a heart, or Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. As the doctors told my friends the day of Jacob’s birth, this is a universally fatal condition. For the last fourteen years of his allotted time God has enabled him to live with this condition. But it has become apparent that the medical measures sought to keep him alive are no longer viable for any length of time. A heart transplant now seems his only recourse. Of course, the obvious point here is that for this transplant to take place, someone else will have to die. O Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
How long would it take for Jacob before he could expect a heart? Two to three months is average wait time for the heart he would need. A heart from a person somewhere around his current size and weight or perhaps a bit older and bigger. Stunned, we asked why it takes only two or three months. People of that age are prone to accidents, was the ominous reply. This is the reality of allotted time for some living in the wilderness of this present age. O Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Then on Wednesday afternoon I received a call from the St. Louis Park Police Department. Come to the station, one of our officers just died. I am a chaplain for this department. Tim was thirty eight years old. A husband and father of two children. He died of a pulmonary embolism. This was his allotted time. O Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
I sat for some hours talking with the officers, watching the characteristically stunned and numb bodies of the grieving. This is part of our allotted time. O Lord, teach us to number our days.
I also visited a ninety three year old saint recovering from back surgery. Helped a family in the church move to a new house. Counseled a young woman of two children whose husband has committed adultery. And began premarital counseling with a young couple. This is the allotted time in which each of these people is living out their days. O Lord, teach us to number our days.
Listen again to Moses: “The years of our life are seventy, and if by reason of strength eighty, yet their span is but toil and trouble.” Rather blunt isn’t he? This is the realism of pilgrim piety for the child of God who doesn’t hide the fact that we don’t live in paradise. We live in the land of the dying, not the land of the living. This too is the reality of our allotted time. O Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
But you say: “What does God know of death and suffering and sorrow? Isn’t God far removed from and untouched by the frailties of mankind?” Moses asked the question: “Who knows the power of your anger?” (Verse 11).
In the fullness of time, the Bible reveals the incomprehensible and comforting answer to that question. The Son of God came into this world, took to himself our human nature and became man. Hebrews says: “Inasmuch as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through his death he might destroy him who had the power of death…” (Hebrews 2:14). And again, “He [the Son of God, Jesus Christ] learned obedience by the things which he suffered, and having been perfected, he became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him” (Hebrews 5:8, 9).
Not only did the Son of God taste the toil and trouble of our existence in his allotted days, he also drank down the full cup of the just anger of God for our sins. On the cursed tree on Calvary he bore the wrath and curse of God in our place for our sakes. On that tree the Son of God cried out: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” The Bible is not coy about supplying the answer: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
What does God know about death and suffering and sorrow? God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, delivered him over to the curse and to bear the wrath of God against our sins in our place. God forsook His own Son whom He loved with a Divine and eternal love. O, God knows infinitely more about death and suffering and sorrow than we could ever know. And He gave His Son so that through faith in Him, we might live forever with God. O Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
O may we not fail to see our time. If you are still drawing breath, you have time. Confronted with the gritty face of death and toil and trouble, O Lord, teach us to number our days. “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way. The unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy on Him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:6, 7). This is the heart of wisdom God would teach in our allotted days.
May we not fail to see our time. When we see that our time is allotted time, our response must be gratitude and joy that this time has been given to us by God, for God’s service and glory. This is the heart of wisdom God would teach us in our allotted time. This is what really matters. For time, and eternity.