Psalm 39:5 reads, “My entire lifetime is just a moment.”
After examining his patient, the doctor told him, “I have some bad news for you and some really bad news.” Shocked, the patient asked, “What’s the bad news?” The doctor said, “You have 24 hours to live.” The patient said, “Well, I guess it can’t get any worse, so what’s the really bad news?” The doctor replied, “The really bad news is that I should have called you yesterday.”
Seriously, the Bible says, “Seventy years are given to us! Some even live to eighty…soon they disappear” (Psalm 90:10). The average man lives into his mid-seventies and the average woman into her mid-eighties. So if you’re a man, take your age and deduct it from 75. If you’re a woman, take your age and deduct it from 85. Whatever number of years you’re left with, multiply those by 365 and you’ll know how many “days” you have left.
But don’t stop there. Take some sheets of paper and cut them up into little squares. Number each of them and then put them in a box. That way you’ll know “your days are numbered” (Psalm 39:4). Then each morning take a square out of the box, roll it up and toss it into the trash can. That little exercise will remind you that your days are getting shorter and time’s running out.
Whatever you plan to do for yourself, your family and friends, and the Kingdom of God, you have a new urgency in doing it. Poet Charles Thomas Studd wrote, “Only one life, ’twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.”
© 2017 CE