Like sand through the hour glass:

The ancient ones knew a thing or two, Job wrote “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are ended without hope.” Job 7:6 MKJV
 

King David said to The Almighty “O Jehovah, make me to know my end, and the measure of my days, what it is; I know how frail I am. Psalm 39:4 MKJV

Again and again he reflected upon the brevity of life… “My days are like a shadow stretched out; and I wither like grass.” Psalm 102:11 MKJV 

David, who lived until he was 70 years old, said “Behold, You have made my days as a handbreadth, and my age is as nothing before You. Surely every man standing is altogether vanity. Psalm 39:5 MKJV  

Psalm 90: 2 reads “So teach us to number our days, so that we may bring a heart of wisdom.”  There is a vast difference between counting our days, (25,567 if we live to 70 years of age) and numbering them: anyone with a moderate skill in arithmetic can work that out, likewise working out approximately how many days we might have left at any given time is not difficult either. Moses, who wrote Psalm 90, was 120 years old when he died, and in the western nations we are gradually extending our life expectancy.

Out of every 100,000 persons, 88,361 reach 50 years of age, more than 70,000 make it to 70, and almost 17,000 get to 85 or more. Staying around a long time, however, should not be our primary goal. Rather, we should be concerned with giving significance  and value to all our years and not letting them end in shame and disgrace.      

What Moses and David are talking about is something different altogether. No person can count the number of days he or she has to live; the number of days, months, and years is the Lord’s knowledge alone. We all know, (even if we are unwilling to acknowledge it) that we shall die; what we need God to teach us is how to number our days, as if the present one was the last, for we cannot boast of tomorrow. We do not know the moment when our spirit will be called home, nor can we know the manner of our departure. 

Most of us don’t have the luxury that God afforded King Hezekiah… “About that time Hezekiah became deathly ill, and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to visit him. He gave the king this message: “This is what the Lord says: Set your affairs in order, for you are going to die. You will not recover from this illness.’” 2 Kings 20:1

I remember sitting with my Mother as she slipped into a coma from which she did not awake. The only sound in her hospital room was her labored breathing, a sound like a person running a long final lap. I went home, not knowing that she  would pass away during the night; I was asleep when she entered eternity. I had been waiting for that moment for several years, and yet I did not know the hour or minute that her illness would finally claim her. 

When we cleaned out her home we found many photos taken when she was a young woman, and several taken on her wedding day. I did not recognize the attractive, vibrant person captured by the lens. At her funeral I reflected, once again, on the brevity of life, and silently resolved to make my days count.

Rather than wasting our precious, fleeting days in pursuing things that don’t matter, and which ultimately leave us spiritually bankrupt, let us seek the forgiveness of our sins, and an inheritance in heaven.

And let the beauty of Jehovah our God be on us; and establish the work of our hands on us; yea, the work of our hands, establish it. Psalm 90:17 MKJV