How Will You Number Your Days?

Last month, our women’s ministry team at my church put on an event where we talked about stewardship of the resources God has given us. The event was inspired by Moses’ prayer in Psalm 90: “teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (v.12). We invited a panel of women from a variety of ages and stages of life and I asked them questions about what stewardship looks like in their lives. We talked about using our time, gifts, and resources for the glory of God and how it often looks different at the various stages of our lives.

One question I asked them wasn’t really a question at all. I asked them to respond to this statement:

Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should.

It’s a statement I’ve been thinking about ever since.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been prone to say “yes” to just about everything. If the task is of interest to me, something I am capable of doing, and doesn’t interfere with something else, most of the time, I say “yes.” Perhaps it’s my age or the fatigue related to grief or I’ve finally realized that I need to set limits, but I’ve realized that I spin too many plates. I’ve said “yes” to too many things. All those things are good things, in and of themselves. They are all things I enjoy doing. But in spinning so many plates, I’m not doing any one thing well.

Just because I’m capable of doing something, doesn’t mean that I should.

I had a conversation with a friend recently where we talked about the idolatry of productivity—of worshipping how much we can accomplish in our day and of finding our identity and purpose in what we we produce. I know I pride myself on my use of time and how much I can squeeze out of it. Kelly Kapic, in his book, You’re Only Human, writes that “When productivity alone reigns, we cultivate idolatry rather than worship, isolation rather than community, and selfishness rather than love” (p.163). Perhaps this is why I say “yes” to too many things. I find my identity in the ability to juggle many things.

In Psalm 90, Moses points out that our lives are brief.  “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” (v.10). He contrasts the eternality of God with our lives, reminding us that before the mountains were brought forth, before the earth was formed, God existed (v.2). He also reminds us that our days lie in God’s hands (v.3). We all have a set number of years on this earth and then they come to an end. This contrast reminds me that only God is infinite. Only God is above and before all things. He has no limits. He is not bound by time and space. As Moses wrote, “For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night” (v.4). Yet, I attempt to live my life as though I am limitless—that I am some kind of superhuman capable of accomplishing more than anyone else. And more, I push against my humanity and the limits with which God created me.

After contrasting humanity to God, Moses then asks the Lord to “teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” I read John Calvin’s thoughts on this psalm and he commented that it may seem silly to ask the Lord to help us number our days. After all, it’s not that hard to count to eighty years, right? Calvin pointed out that humans can count the number of miles between stars and planets, yet we have such difficulty realizing the brevity of our days. It really is spiritual wisdom to understand how brief our life is and what we ought to do with the time God has given us. Calvin wrote: Moses “teaches us that we then truly apply our hearts to wisdom when we comprehend the shortness of human life. What can be a greater proof of madness than to ramble about without proposing to one's self any end? True believers alone, who know the difference between this transitory state and a blessed eternity, for which they were created, know what ought to be the aim of their life. No man then can regulate his life with a settled mind, but he who, knowing the end of it, that is to say death itself, is led to consider the great purpose of man's existence in this world, that he may aspire after the prize of the heavenly calling.”

As I consider what I should do with my life—and not just what I can do—Moses’ prayer is one that I am praying. It is wisdom to grasp the reality of my finiteness and the limits of my creatureliness. If my Savior in his humanity needed time to rest, how can I think that I don’t need that as well? If my Savior set aside tasks to spend time with the Father in prayer, how can I think that I can just run from one thing to the next in my own strength? Truly, it is wisdom to realize that God is God and I am not. It is wisdom to use the brief years of my life well and for his glory, not my own. For me, this means to not necessarily fill every moment of my day with activity, but to use the time I have well and to be fully present as I do so.

Toward the end of Psalm 90, Moses reminds us that it is God’s favor upon us that enables us to do the work he’s given us. “Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!” (v.17). He says it twice for emphasis. Interestingly, the word favor here is beauty in Hebrew. “Let the beauty of the Lord be upon us.” What is the Lord’s beauty? The wonder and glory of God. The grace and goodness of God. Who he is in his person and character. Calvin comments, “Moses intimates that we cannot undertake or attempt anything with the prospect of success, unless God become our guide and counsellor, and govern us by his Spirit.” Or as Jesus said in John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

I’m still working through the idea that just because I can do something, doesn’t mean that I should. Part of that means repenting of my idolatry of productivity and finding rest in the One who created me with all my human limits and frailties. As Calvin wrote, may God be my guide and counselor.

Father in heaven: Establish the work of our hands. Yes, establish the work of our hands.

Photo by Amy Tran on Unsplash

Looking to Eternity

I once overheard someone comment about midlife saying, “There is nothing more to look forward to.”

When you are young, it seems like life is an open highway stretched out before you. All the big events of life await: graduating high school, going to college, getting your first job. Then you may aspire to get married, have children, and grow in your career. At some point, the road of life narrows. It seems like you’ve accomplished many of the goals and big milestones of life.

Now what?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Perhaps because I just finished up eleven years of homeschooling and launched my oldest off to college. As my husband and I helped my son move into his college dorm, we couldn’t believe it’s been thirty years since our own college move-in day. When we walked across the campus, memories seemed to pop out from every hallway and building. We marveled at the passage of time. In a few years, we’ll launch our youngest son. What’s next after that? Is it true that there’s nothing more to look forward to?

Sinclair Ferguson, in his book, Devoted to God, comments that for the non-Christian “the future seems long and the past short. Slowly that perspective changes. Eventually the past seems to have been all too short. And now the future seems short too.”[1] We see this in our culture. The young think they have all the time in the world. Until they don’t. Then they live life looking backwards, remembering their glory days, and clinging tightly to the remaining time they have left.

But for the Christian, time is lived differently. Ferguson says that the Christian “lives from the future into the past.” [2] We live in light of eternity, in light of our future glory. Everything is viewed through the lens of what God is doing in the present to prepare us for our future with him forever. Whatever challenges and trials we face today are the material God uses to transform us into the image of his Son. And each day brings us only closer to the day when we will be like him—to when we will see him face to face.

This means that there is more to look forward to, not less! For those of us who have met many of life’s milestones, there is an eternity ahead for us. A brand new highway awaits, one on which we’ve never travelled. And it’s a highway that never ends, it goes on forever. This is hard to imagine. We are bound by time, by the seconds, minutes, and hours that tick by every day. But there is a glorious future ahead. For the Christian, we look forward to the day when we are shed of sin once for all. We look forward to resurrected bodies in the New Heavens and New Earth. We look forward to worshipping our King on the throne, surrounded by believers of all time. We look forward to glory, perfection, unity, and joy unimaginable.

No doubt, the passage of time on this earth is fast. It seems like yesterday our future was wide open and we couldn’t wait to see what awaited. As the years and decades pass, it’s tempting to view life as though the best has already come. But the best is still to come! Christian, your eternity awaits.

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Cor. 4:16-18).

[1] Ferguson, Sinclair Devoted to God p. 219

[2] p. 219.

Photo by Felipe Giacometti on Unsplash

On Motherhood and the Passage of Time

It’s the end of the school year here and I decided to begin work on a task I’ve put off for far too long: going through the numerous boxes of homeschool classwork. We have years worth of binders filled with lessons and worksheets. I saved my children’s work from the very first day we started homeschooling, partly because I needed to save their work for a portfolio, but partly because I just couldn’t part with it.

My oldest just finished his junior year of high school and it was time. I’ve dreaded going through his school work because I knew what it represented. I knew that opening those boxes and flipping through spelling tests, math quizzes, and handwriting exercises would shout out to me the harsh and difficult truth—time has passed all too quickly. I knew that sweet memories would flash in my mind, memories of snuggling up on the couch during afternoon read-a-louds, of combing the beach for shells during that year when we studied ocean life, and of laughing at my son’s insistence on illustrating every word on his weekly spelling tests. Memories of studying the Great Wall of China and constructing one of our own out of miniature craft blocks. Memories of cheering on Odysseus as he pushed forward in his long journey home. Memories of lapbooks and unit studies and field trips. I knew that such memories would usher forth tears, and I wasn’t wrong.

When we started homeschooling my oldest in the first grade, we thought it would be temporary. We expected to do it for a few years at most. But we soon realized that it was a perfect fit for him. He thrived in homeschooling and my youngest soon joined him. When we moved to a city where there were many options for homeschoolers to take classes, he thrived there too. When we switched his brother to a local Christian school, my oldest wanted to continue homeschooling. He’ll enter his senior year this fall and our homeschool story will soon come to an end.

I look at both my kids now, who both stand far above me, and struggle to see the little boys they once were. Sometimes, when they smile or laugh at a silly joke, I catch a glimpse of their childhood, but then just as quickly, it is gone and all I see are whiskers across a man’s jawline. I then hear the jangle of car keys and they are out the door to see friends. It seems like yesterday my oldest was learning to count; now we are registering him to take Calculus in the fall. Our conversations which once centered on all the “why?” questions of life and how things work, now focus on plans for the future.

My life over the years has revolved around the school day and the school year. I’ve measured time by classes, semesters, and summer breaks. In between those times were hard and difficult days when no one wanted to do their work and I longed for a substitute teacher to come in and take over. On other days, I wanted to resign my job as teacher, principal, janitor, and lunch lady all together. On those days, I looked forward to the next stage when things would be easier. I looked forward to days when I would be in less demand. I longed for moments of peace and quiet. Sometimes, I even imagined what else I could do with my time. To be honest, there were even days when I wallowed in self-pity, reminding myself of all I gave up to teach my kids at home.

Yet all those years have flown by all too fast. My days as a teacher have since shifted to that of tutor and guidance counselor and those jobs too will soon end. While part of me wants to rewind time and go back to those afternoons when we all sat and listened as we took turns reading aloud the day’s history lesson, part of me also loves watching my sons grow and mature into young men. I love seeing the labors of my years, the sacrifices of my days, bear fruit. I love witnessing the Lord’s work in their lives. And I look forward to seeing what he does in them in the years to come. Because the truth is, all along I’ve merely been a steward in their lives. They belong to the Lord and his calling on me as a mother will all too soon transition to a different role. While I will always be their mother, I won’t always be involved in their day to day life. I won’t always be needed. I won’t always be their primary instructor.

As I flipped through those binders of days past, I was reminded all the more that my job was temporary— that I didn’t have tenure after all.

Moms, the days are long but the years are short. Those days of pushing through exhaustion do not last forever. Those days of picking up toys and wiping faces and teaching the same lesson over and over will soon pass. Those days of watching the clock tick by all too slowly until bedtime will be gone before you know it. May we, like Moses, ask the Lord to teach us to number our days (Ps. 90). May we steward our brief time for God’s glory. For our “days are like grass” (Ps. 103:15) and all too soon, our time with our kids will be past.

A Mother's Reflections on the Passing of Time

When I first became a mom, I received lots of advice. Some of it I asked for, some of it was unsolicited. Sometimes it was a friend telling me about their favorite parenting book or the best place to buy diapers. Sometimes it was a stranger in the grocery store voicing their how-to solutions for anything from child safety to potty training to incorporating veggies into my toddler’s diet. Then there were those who insisted that I must follow “So and so’s method” or I’d never survive the 2’s and 3’s— and whatever that so-called life saving method was varied from person to person.

But there was one piece of advice I received that I’ve thought about every year since. What was the advice? A mentor casually said to me something I’m sure many parents hear: “Enjoy each moment for it passes all too quickly.” She had just entered the empty nest stage of life and I could see memories flash across her eyes as she looked at my son resting in my arms.

When she said those words, I remember thinking, “I only wish it went by fast!” and tossed it aside with the rest of the well-meaning advice I received. Those days, I was deep in the trenches of early motherhood where time seemed to stretch out like an afternoon shadow. And then the sun would rise on another morning and I’d be reminded that another night went by without any sleep.

But as time went by, and the fog of fatigue faded, I remembered the advice. And every year around this time I reflect on her words. That’s because my oldest turned 16 yesterday. 16! It seems like just last week I was reading him a bedtime story while he lay snug in his blue racecar bed and then asked me to read five more. It feels like yesterday that I sat watching him cover every inch of the great room floor with an elaborate train track and a few hours later asked me to video every. single. cannon ball jump into the backyard pool. Long gone are the days of playing Battleship and building Legos and answering impossible “Why?” questions. Instead, these days are filled with instructions on safe driving and how to use a calendar to organize school work and reminders to study for the SAT. And asking the one question no parent will ever receive the answer to: “Why do you leave empty boxes in the pantry?”

When I consider how fast time has gone by and that I only have two years before he likely leaves home for college, I start to panic. Have we taught him everything he needs to know? What have we missed? Then part of me wants to treat these last two years like a study cram session. I want to make flash cards and quiz him on all the life lessons we’ve taught, the theology we’ve imparted, and all those important instructions that are guaranteed to save him from near death if only he follows them exactly as instructed.

But I know that the age of 18 isn’t some kind of expiration date, as though everything a person needs to know must be imparted by that time or they’re out of luck. I also know that most of the lesson’s he’ll learn in life will happen in adulthood, in those years when he stretches his wings and explores both his gifts and this great big world God has made. I know too, from experience, that he’ll have to fall to learn the most important lessons of all.

And so, while I will continue to teach my son what needs to be taught and gently lead and guide as needed, I also want to do what my friend told me all those years ago, “Enjoy each moment for it passes all too quickly.”

My Awkward Dance with Time

Time and I have always performed a kind of awkward dance together.

Too often, I try to lead. I try to push time forward—some call it future-tripping. When I was a teen, I couldn’t wait to leave home and attend college. When I was in college, I looked forward to getting married. When my kids were little, I thought “I can’t wait until he can sleep through the night…stop needing diapers…clean up after himself…”

Since I hit forty a few years ago—okay, five years ago—I’ve wanted time to slow down. Pause. Stop altogether. But instead, it seems to be on a downhill slide. Everything they say that happens to your body after you turn forty is true. My skin has turned treasonous. I pull muscles for no apparent reason. I have both a space heater and an additional air conditioner next to my side of the bed. Sometimes I use them both at the same time. You can laugh; my doctor did.

And I keep hearing that old Steve Miller Band song, “Time keeps on slippin’ slippin’ slippin’ into the future...”

When my kids were young, older women would tell me to treasure that time with them, because before I knew it, they would be grown. Even now, as I grumble about my life as a chauffeur and look forward to my oldest getting his license, older moms tell me how they long to return to the days of driving their children from place to place. The saying is true, “the days are long, the years short.”

Midlife is a strange season and one I find difficult to adjust to. I’m smack dab in the middle of life. It’s as though I stand on a timeline, where all the years to one side of me are that of my youth and everything ahead of me is that of aging. All the decades leading up to where I now stand were focused on achieving and gaining. Acquiring. Adding. When I look forward, life seems more about losing. Children take flight. Houses get smaller. Work becomes less, health elusive.

But at the same time, I feel more comfortable with who I am than I ever did in my youth. I have a sweet and tender relationship with the Lord that developed through time and experience. While in my younger days, I had a head knowledge of God’s love and faithfulness, I’ve since seen him work in countless ways and now know with certainty it is true. The prayer life I now have, I wouldn’t trade it for the one I had in my 20’s. The trust and dependency I’ve learned through trial and hardship is one I wish my younger self knew—rather than trusting in myself, plans, and systems to make life work.

Moses also knew how fast time flies, how our life is but a breath. He wrote in Psalm 90: “For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. 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” (vv. 9-10). John Calvin commented: “men foolishly glory in their excellence, since, whether they will or no, they are constrained to look to the time to come. And as soon as they open their eyes, they see that they are dragged and carried forward to death with rapid haste, and that their excellence is every moment vanishing away.” I can relate to that “rapid haste” Calvin refers to. Though I know time moves forward in the exact same rate, moment after moment, day after day, it somehow feels faster these days. My kids seem to grow an inch a week. More and more they stretch their wings. They now find themselves where I once was: looking forward to greater freedom and life on their own.

Moses then prayed, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (v.12). It is wisdom to consider the brevity of life. It is wisdom to pause and look backward to realize all you have learned and then forward to see the finish line closer than it was before. But in so doing, not to panic and fear the death that is to come; rather, to focus the days we have left on living for God’s glory. For those who are in Christ know there is more to come in eternity where time will no longer be of consequence.

In my dance with time, I’ve learned that I can’t lead; it’s not my place to do so. Rather, I must follow the steps marked out for me. I must move forward, keeping along with time’s set rhythm. If I pay attention to his steps, I see he’s really not going any faster than before. And if I cast aside the distractions that cause me to stumble and focus instead on my call to live for God’s glory, I realize: I’ve got all the time I need.

Your Time is Not Your Own

C.S. Lewis’ book The Screwtape Letters contains a series of letters written by a demon to his nephew, advising him on how to go about tempting and deceiving his charges on earth. The book helps readers consider the myriad of ways in which evil forces work to keep us distracted from the truth of who God is and what He has done.

In one letter, Screwtape, the uncle, encourages his nephew, Wormwood, to morally assault his charge by darkening his intellect. One way to do this was to “zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption ‘My time is my own.’”

Screwtape asserted that people often grow angry when they feel that their time has been stolen from them. He encouraged Wormwood to “let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours. Let him feel as a grievous tax that portion of this property which he has to make over to his employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which he allows to his religious duties. But what he must never be permitted to doubt is that the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright.”

The Passage of Time

Time is a unique thing. Unlike money, we can’t accumulate it or multiply it. Unlike other things we attempt to control, we can’t hold it back, slow it down, or stop it. Time continues to move forward at the same rate, every second, minute, hour, and day of our life. It’s the same for everyone; we all use up an equivalent amount of time each day...

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