For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. – Psalm 90:9-12
As this article is being prepared for publication, there are 43 days until the dorms open for the fall semester at GSBC. That is really is not that much time between now and then. If a young person wants to have enough money saved for college for the fall, that person certainly should have been working a job for some time now and saving as much money as possible for school. It is always amazing to me when I deal with young people who do not seem to understand this principle. Someone asks them, “Have you gotten a job yet?” The answer is, “I am going to go out and look for a job next week,” or, “I put in one application.” This answer is the same week after week. The problem is that they are just thinking, “It is summer. Summer is wonderful. It is so great not having any responsibility. I don’t want to think about school now; I will deal with that later. I just want to enjoy being out of school.” They do not realize that they have a definite number of days to do what needs to be done in order to prepare for what is on the horizon.
Just as the summer is short for a college student, life if short for all of us; thus, we need to be doing what we feel is important in the days that we have remaining on this earth. If we realize that our time is limited, we then begin to think of how we can best invest our time. That is what these verses are teaching us. “So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”
A trip to your favorite amusement park is a good illustration of this principle. What is the purpose of going to the amusement park? You want to have fun. You want to have as much fun as you can have, so when you get to the park, you look at the map of the park and the list of rides and attractions and begin to formulate a plan. You try to get from one ride to the next as quickly as possible. Why do you behave that way? You want to enjoy your time as much as possible, so you plan carefully. If we can do this for an amusement park, we can learn to do it for important things in life as well.
Compared to eternity, our lives are very short. What do you need to have accomplished by the time the summer ends—or, even more importantly, by the time you meet the Lord? Once you have answered that question, it is time to get started; because time is flying by!
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