Numbering Our Days 
Max Craddock

            As our days of life come and go, we understand how important it is that we live everyday to the full since we have no guarantees on length of life. Since arriving at that “beautiful” age of retirement, I’m realizing that there are fewer days ahead of me than have passed by. All of us, regardless of how committed and faithful to God we are, go through those days when we’re just not everything we’d like to be. In view of that, it is a good thing to stop and consider the importance of “numbering our days” and rejoicing in the fact that we do not face life alone.

            As I think about this challenge, I’m thankful for the strength and support God has provided through Himself, through His Word and through the fellowship of the saints and the hope and the strength that he gives us. Considering all this, let us look at Psalm 90. This is a psalm in which God is recognized and then because of this recognition, man is challenged in his relationship to God.  “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:1, 2).  This psalm reminds us that on a day to day basis, God is our refuge. We can take our comfort in Him, gain our strength from Him, look to Him as the one who we would count on in times of struggle and difficulty and we do gain that strength from Him.
            Take heart in the fact that God is our refuge.  “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,  though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling” (Psalm 46:1 – 3). I personally have never been in an earthquake where the earth shakes so violently that mountains literally fall down and crash into the ground or the sea. I’ve seen pictures of it but I’ve never experienced it personally. I do, however, remember an individual being interviewed who had been in an earthquake and had come through it. It was a situation where the person should have been dead. There is no way he should have walked away from what he experienced. Their response was, “I was thankful for my faith in God because I knew that even if I left this life, He was my real refuge.” That is what the Psalmist is trying to remind us of, that God is our refuge, He is our fortress, the One in whom we have strength.
            In Nahum 1: 7 Nahum speaks of the fact that God is our stronghold in the day of trouble. In other words, it is God in whom we can put our trust. There is in God that place of comfort, that presence with Him where we can receive the support and joy and the strength to face terribly difficult times, to face terribly difficult troubles and to understand that God is indeed our strength. Sometimes, however, we need comfort and support from “someone who has skin on.” Paul reminds us,  “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”(2 Corinthians 1:3, 4). We have received, and do receive, from God comfort and encouragement which helps us to see past the here and now, thereby making us able to be of comfort to others as they face the trials of life. In experiencing the support of God and His people, we are able to deal with “trials of various kinds” as they come to us.
            God wants us to find in Him comfort and a stronghold, giving us strength that will enable us to comfort others as we demonstrate and share our faith with them. When I was a boy in my home town of South Point, Ohio, we had a chemical plant in our town that had been built during the Second World War. Later on they changed from some of the products being made to making fertilizers. That became a big part of their business until one day the storage area for the fertilizers caught on fire. It wasn’t a “flaming” fire but it was smouldering on the inside and produced the most beautiful orange smoke you have ever seen. It started at about 8 o’clock one night and in those days nobody knew the effects of that smoke and so the police went through a part of the town telling everybody who was in the path of that smoke that they should go to safer ground. There was a young man who was a member of the church; he was about 15 years old. At about 3 o’clock in the morning, his mother went to wake him and told him that they needed to leave because the smoke might be toxic. His response was, “Well if we’re living as Christians then we don’t have to worry about that,” and rolled over and went back to sleep. I’m not suggesting that that was the best thing to do, I think the Lord expects us to use our common sense and it might’ve been a good thing for them to go, however, as it turned out, the only thing the smoke hurt was the chrome (are you old enough to remember chrome?) bumpers on cars. It left black spots on the bumpers as a result of the fallout of the fire. It cost the insurance companies a lot of money to replace them all, but that was the end result of the danger that was involved.
            While I wouldn’t agree with the young fellow’s response,  that ‘hey I’m not going worry about it, I’m just going to go to sleep,’ I do think there’s something to be said about trusting God and having our refuge in God but again, even in saying that, we need to understand that we have to use our good common sense. Going back to Psalm 90 note, “You return man to dust and say, ‘Return, O children of man!’  For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.  For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.  For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh” (Psalm 90:3 – 9). Here the writer seems to be saying that we live our life in some fear because we know of the wrath of God and that our life is going to end. We pass our days in sorrow or in fear or in a concern about the wrath of God.
            However, today as Christians, even though as Hebrews 9:27 tells us that man has an appointment with death and, following that, judgment, for the Christian there doesn’t need to be that worry, as the Psalmist says here, “we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed,” we don’t have to be terrified by God’s indignation. The task before us is to first believe in salvation, freedom from the terror of sin, through Jesus Christ and then to persuade men to love, honour, serve,  accept God and to do His will. The result then is that we don’t have to be afraid.
            Let’s go back to the example of the young man from my youth: he was saying, ‘I’m not afraid to die, if this is the end that’s alright because I’m not afraid of God and of death because I have obeyed the gospel and I’m living the best I can through the Christian life.’ In one sense, while he was a young Christian, he was showing a maturity in faith that says God can be trusted, I can put my faith in God’s hands; I can trust Him to do the best thing for me.
            Going back to Psalm 90, “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.  Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?” (Psalm 90:10, 11).  Again the Psalmist is acknowledging the power of God. He is acknowledging the fact that we are going to die. He says perhaps we will live seventy or eighty years if we have the strength. Today there are, in fact, people living longer than that, but the truth is that we are going to fall into the hands of God, which is the idea that the Psalmist is putting forward.  What we must understand is that it does not have to be a vengeful God. We do not have to fear falling into God’s hands if indeed we have honoured Him in our life.
            That brings us to the crux of the challenge we want to lay on the heart of each one reading this article. Go back to Psalm 90 and verse 12, “ So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Teach us to number our days…we need to know that today is the day of salvation. We need to know that today, as long as there is life, we need to be serving God and we need to continue to serve Him faithfully. Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 15:58, that we should not grow weary in well doing because God will reward us in due time. This does take our ‘numbering our days’ so a good question is, “What does it mean, exactly, to number our days?”  
            Well, I believe he’s saying that we need to realize that we’re not going to live forever, and we need to live everyday of our life prepared to meet God. Some would think it great if God had said, “You just live your life however you want and when the time comes for your judgment, I’ll send you an email, and it will tell you the date and time of my return so you can get your act together.” But that’s not the way it’s going to be, in fact there are no signs of the times, the Lord could come anytime. So everyday of our life we need to count the hours of our day. We need to live our day in such a way that if the Lord calls us home, there won’t be a problem. And that we will stand before Him, not because we are perfect, but because through His Son we have been delivered from sin by His grace. That’s an option that’s open to all of us.
            It’s not just going to happen however, it’s going to happen because we have chosen to honour God. In verse 17 of Psalm 90, the writer expresses an excellent prayer,  “Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!”  The Psalmist is acknowledging that the time will come when we want the favour of God to rest upon us, but how will that happen? It begins by acknowledging, according to the New Testament, that Jesus is the Christ and that we recognize, trust in and believe in Him as the Christ. It involves a willingness of ours to leave sin, to turn our back on it, and go in a different direction. To live a life of holiness rather than a life that’s filled with sinful activities. It involves willingness to confess Jesus as Lord by mouth AND by life as our Lord. Up0n that confession we’re baptized into Christ and in that baptism, we come into contact with the blood of Christ that takes our sins away setting us on the Christian walk. And this walk is to be 24/7. Satan will try to make us “slack off” by taking our relationship with God for granted. Don’t be fooled. Number your days and glorify God in so doing.