Witness in the Word · Module 7 — Eternity and Hope
Class 29 – Numbering Our Days
Source: The Rest of the Story, Chapter Twenty-One
There is a prayer in Scripture that most people have read without stopping long enough to feel the weight of it. Moses prayed:
“So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
— Psalm 90:12 (NKJV)
It is a short prayer, but it is a serious one. Moses was not asking God to help him count the days remaining on a calendar. He was asking God to help him live with the understanding that the days are numbered at all. That they are limited. That they are moving. That each one, once spent, cannot be returned. Wisdom begins the moment a person stops pretending otherwise.
We live in a time that does everything it can to avoid the subject of mortality. We make plans on the assumption that we will be here to carry them out. We say someday as though someday is a location we can always find when we are ready to go there. But Moses knew better. He had watched a generation die in the wilderness. He also knew something else: a person who truly understands the brevity of life does not become hopeless. He becomes wise.
James described life this way:
“For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”
— James 4:14 (NKJV)
That is not pessimism. That is clarity. A vapor is real. You can see it. But it does not last long, and no effort of will can hold it in place.
Solomon wrote:
“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come.”
— Ecclesiastes 12:1 (NKJV)
He was not writing to discourage the young. He was writing to warn them, because he knew how quickly the days of strength become the days of limitation.
Paul balanced this urgency well when he wrote:
“See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”
— Ephesians 5:15-16 (NKJV)
Redeeming the time. Not wasting it or merely managing it. To redeem something is to buy it back, to rescue it from being lost. Paul was urging believers to treat each day as something worth recovering — not by frantic activity, but by purposeful obedience.
Numbering our days means asking the questions that urgency will force us to ask. What am I spending my days on? What am I putting off that matters? Who needs to hear from me before the chapter closes? What obedience have I been delaying? What relationships have I let drift? What bitterness am I still carrying that is costing me more than it is worth?
Strength does not last. Youth does not last. Opportunity does not last. There will come a day when the ability to make right what has been wrong is no longer present in the same form. There will come a day when the person you needed to forgive is no longer living. There will come a day when the apology you meant to make cannot reach the person who needed it. Numbering our days means we take that day seriously before it comes.
David said:
“Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am.”
— Psalm 39:4 (NKJV)
Knowing our frailty is not discouragement. It is the beginning of dependence on God.
A wise man does not wait until the final page to consider what the story has been saying. He numbers his days now. He invests them now. He makes right what can be made right now. He speaks what needs to be spoken now. He forgives now. He returns to the Lord now. He lives ready — not because he is afraid, but because he understands what the days are for.
Number your days. Not to grow anxious, but to grow wise.
Questions for Reflection
Are you spending your days or investing them?
What would change in how you live if you truly believed the days are limited?
Who do you need to forgive, speak to, or bless while there is still time?
What have you been putting off that God has already made plain?
Are you living as though strength and opportunity will always be available?
What obedience needs to begin today, before another day passes?