The Clock is Ticking! — Psalms 90

When I was young I thought I was invincible and took risks. Every living thing wants to live and live fully! I never thought much about the consequences of “what if” scenarios.

As I matured those “what ifs” became more of a concern. At 80-plus years old Moses, through the Holy Spirit expresses a desire to learn how to “number his days that he may have a heart of wisdom.”

What does numbering our days mean? I believe what Moses was desiring was to live out his remaining days with great purpose and focus. Moses wasn’t interested in retiring to a life of self-indulgence and pleasure seeking.

His prayer in Psalms 90 reveals three realities that everyone must come to terms with if they want to learn how to number their days.

The first reality is eternity. In verses 1-2 Moses declares there is an eternal God that lives in eternity. The Bible declares the truth that every human is an eternal being.

We are not an earthly being having a temporary spiritual experience; we are a spiritual being having a temporary earthly experience!

Everyone is going to live eternally somewhere and the decisions we make in this temporary journey will determine our eternal destiny.

We must learn to live with eternity at the center. This will mean allowing ourselves to be accountable to the Lord.

The second reality is that human life is short. For some people life ends abruptly and without warning.

In verses 3-5 Moses describes the frailty of the human experience. Jesus was asked about certain people dying a sudden tragic death.

The prevailing assumption during His generation was it was because they must have been terrible sinners. Jesus corrected that assumption and instead used it as a call to awaken.

He said as sad and tragic as these events might be, the real tragedy would be to die unprepared for eternity. Living with a sense of vulnerability will help us to number our days.

The third reality is time is precious.

Moses declares that a thousand years as one day and one day as a thousand years or a watch in the night. Some people put off making a decision to accept Jesus as Lord till another day or tomorrow.

When we learn to hold time as precious we will learn to number our days. Moses had been a prince in Egypt for 40 years, a nomad in the desert for 40 years and now the last years of his life was going to wander in the wilderness.

Even in the midst of unfulfilled dreams and disappointments, Moses prays to the Lord, “Teach us to number our days that we may present You a heart of wisdom!”

The greatest desire of his heart — make my life count!

Eternity, human life is short and time is precious should cause us all to live accountable to the Lord Jesus!