Job 14:5

⁵ Since his days are determined…

From a young age we are conditioned to count our lives in terms of years lived.   There are certain milestones that seem very significant to us.  1 year of age, 10 years of age, 21 years, 40 years, 100 years.  These are all milestones we look forward to or hold in high esteem.  And because we tend to count our lives by years, it is very easy for us to get caught up in considering and planning our lives by years as well.  Many of us have a 5-year plan, a 20-year plan, and a retirement plan.  We are always looking forward to when school is over, winter is over, fall is here, vacation is here or a host of other future events.  If we are in a particularly difficult season of life, we may say something like, “I can’t wait until this year is over.”  Our minds, it seems, are often so focused on what might be coming in the future that we tend to live and plan our lives in terms of the weeks to come, the months to come, and even years to come, while often neglecting the many moments of opportunity to serve the Lord that just the one single day offers.  In Job 14:5 we are given a simple reminder of the importance of a single day.  God Himself numbers our lives, not in years, but in days.  God knows that each and every day is full of opportunity for us to build His Kingdom, strengthen His church, encourage one another, love one another and an endless list other things of great and lasting importance.  Dear Christian, as hard as it is to see in the moment, there are lessons to learn in the daily grind, there are opportunities to grow in your faith in the mundane of daily work, chores, family life, and simple devotion to God.  A God honoring life is never defined by what might come in the future, it is built brick by brick through obedience in the trenches of day-to-day living.  While I understand the necessity of some planning, my hope is that each day we will give far more consideration to the things of the moment that will be of lasting and eternal consequence, rather than the things of the future.  I have already lived 15,530 of my days, how many do I have left?  How about you?  We don’t know!  Therefore, since all our days are already numbered before we have lived one of them, and each day is so very precious, let us then learn to number our lives the way God does, and live by these words of the Psalmist; “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

Yours in Christ,

Pastor John