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Numbered Days

I'm writing right now to make sense of some news that I just got. A wonderful man of God, teacher, preacher and Bible expositor went home to be with the Lord tonight and I feel....

....weird.

He'd been battling health issues since before I met him in 2004, but God had been sustaining him for so long, I didn't think it would end any time soon. But it did. Abruptly, if you ask me, but perhaps not a moment too soon, if I understand anything about his cause of death.

This past Saturday, I was at a funeral for another individual...a husband and father who was YOUNGER than me. I didn't know him well, but the fact that he was younger than me made me sit up and take notice.

Psalm 90, written by Moses, is another good reminder. In verse 10, Moses tells us that humans live on average 70 years, 80 if you have strength and favour. Yet, all those years are full of labour and sorrow and then the life is cut off. Moses goes on to ask the Almighty to teach us to number our days, so that we can apply our hearts unto wisdom.

The stark truth that we often like to ignore is that our days are numbered. We go about making plans and living our lives as if there is no end on the horizon, but the end is sometimes much closer than we think. Therefore the wise (and yes, inconvenient) thing to do is to be mindful of how we spend our time and of how we live our lives.

All too often, I've heard young people tell me that they want to live committed Christian lives, but they just want to have certain experiences first. I understand that (there was a time in my life when I thought that living a Christian life meant conforming to a series of restrictions and obligations), but  our days are numbered. And try as we might, we don't and can never know the exact number. Therefore, living a life that is pleasing to God is something to be done now and not at some uncertain point in the future.

Perhaps the following quote sums it up the best: "Live every day as if it were going to be your last; for one day you're sure to be right." ~Harry "Breaker" Harbord Morant

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