STEWARDSHIP - PART 2: TEACH US TO NUMBER OUR DAYS

Here’s a question - by a show of hands, how many of you would say that you are tired this morning? How many of you would say that you are more than tired, you are exhausted? How many of you are too tired to raise your hand? 

If you are tired this morning and find yourself tired most mornings, you are not alone. The vast majority of North Americans are exhausted.  Ask anyone how they are, and once you get passed the obligatory surface answer of “fine, thanks” you discover that most will give you the answer, “whew, tired”, “rushed off my feet”. Some would suggest that we are tired because we are not getting enough sleep, but I would like to suggest that one of the major causes of our exhaustion is the speed with which we are living our lives. 

Many of us live life at such a speed seeking to meet so many commitments, so many deadlines, so many obligations that our living has been described as “Hyperliving – skimming along the surface of life.”¹ One author has suggested that we North Americans are part of a “forward stampede.” We are living in a culture that regularly compares life to a treadmill. No one seems to have any time, everyone suffers from lack of time, and everyone is plain out of time. 

Max Lucado has said how appropriate it is that the United States is the only nation in the world that has a mountain called, “Mount Rushmore.” We are not that different from our American cousins. Alexander Solzhenitsyn said that “Hastiness and superficiality are the two physic diseases of the 20^th century.”² 

We have embraced fast food, the Christmas rush, the fast forward, the Quickie Mart, the nanosecond, the 10-second sound byte and rush hour. We say good bye to one another by saying, “I must run” – and we grumble against anything that slows us down - the stop sign, the stop light and the speed bump. (The stoplight at Mintleaf and 16^th Avenue - that takes forever to change!) 

Of course it wasn’t always like this. I do not believe that I am romanticizing the past - the 40s, the 50s and the 60s - when I say that the pace of life in those days was slower than it is today. The number of obligations and commitments and deadlines the number of opportunities today is not like yesterday. I know it is a documented fact. “According to a Harris survey, the amount of leisure time enjoyed by the average (North) American has decreased 37 percent since 1973. Over the same period, the average workweek, including commuting, has jumped from under forty-one hours to nearly forty-seven hours.” And for women who work outside the home, if you include the work they do in the home, it’s jumped significantly.³ 

We are living our lives at such a high rate of speed that we are experiencing a high rate of exhaustion. It’s the kind of exhaustion that once may have been met and dealt with a weeklong vacation on the beach with a book, but that is no longer a cure because everyone of you will tell me how much work it is to go away on holiday! You have to run on the treadmill with double speed before you leave, and when you come back you have to hit the ground running because of the backlog of things that need to be done when you get back. It is such a problem to go away that some of you skip holidays altogether, thinking that it is easier to stay and work than it is to go on a holiday. And if some of you don’t do it, many of us think it. 

The speed at which we are living our lives and the resulting exhaustion is bringing our culture to a crisis, if it hasn’t already arrived. Physically we are suffering with more stress-related problems than ever before. We can’t find enough occupational therapists, massage therapists and doctors as general practitioners. Mentally we are suffering - we have more psychologists and psychiatrists, but with longer line-ups to see them. Relationally we are suffering - the family is disintegrating, and true community is for some only an idea that we read about on the billboards advertising new homes in Cornell. Spiritually we have no time for God - we jump at the sound of our alarm clocks but we sleep through the call of the Almighty. He calls us and He gets a busy signal. 

What is the solution? My friends, I believe that we need to pray the prayer that is offered in Psalm 90 at verse 12 – “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” 

I take that to mean, “Lord help us to make each day count, help us to live wisely and well.” It is a good prayer for us to pray, given the culture in which we live and the speed with which we are living our lives.  So let’s think for a moment about what it means to pray this prayer, Teach us to number our days aright. 

It is a prayer that occurs in a psalm that many scholars believe is written by Moses. It makes sense as we go through the psalm. It matches the feelings and the situation of the Israelites as they wander through the dessert for those long forty years. 

As you read the Psalms, you will notice that the book is divided into five books which matches the first five books of the Bible. And as you read the individual books you discover that the themes are similar to each of the corresponding books of the Bible. Book four then matches the themes of the book of Numbers which primarily tell of the Israelites wanderings in the desert. 

The psalm can be divided in two major divisions. In verses 1-11 you have an affirmation of who God is and an affirmation of who humanity is, and then in verses 12 through 17 you have a series of petitions. Teach us to number our days… Relent … Have  compassion … Satisfy us with your unfailing love … Make us glad … May your deeds be shown … May the favour of the Lord rest on us … Establish the work of our hands.

In our rushed society, we only have time to concentrate on that first prayer this morning “Help us to live so that our lives count. Help us to live wisely. To number our days aright.”

I believe that that prayer grows out of the first eleven verses. So as we think of how we can apply this prayer to our lives and what it means to us today, we have to go back to the first 11 verses. Teach us to number our days aright. What does that mean?

1

I think first it means, we our lives really count for something when we remember where our home is. Verse 1: “Lord you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.” Isn’t that a beautiful verse? You have been our dwelling place, You have been our home through all generations, before the mountains were even born, he says in verse 2. You have been there for us. You have been our dwelling place, You have been our home. Home traditionally is a picture of security and safety. 

So the first lesson we must learn as we ask God to teach us to number our days is that God is our place of security and safety. 

This is a truth that Scripture affirms again and again, ”The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock in whom I take refuge.” (Psalm 18:2)  “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.” (Proverbs 18:10)

It’s important for us to remember in our hurry-up world. We fall into thinking that our security and safety is found in going faster and accomplishing more and doing more. And Scripture says no - our security and safety is found in God. 

So part of learning how to number our days is taking time each day with God. It is vital that you build this into your calendars. God is your rock, it’s not your portfolio. God is your security, it’s not your climbing the corporate ladder. God is the one you will be spending eternity with so make sure that you are spending time with Him, listening to Him, talking to Him. 

I worry for some folks who don’t take time to talk to God and let Him speak to them. And I wonder what are they are going to do when they get to heaven and spend a whole eternity with God? What are they going to talk to him about? Sports? The weather? For eternity?? 

O Lord teach us make our days count – means that we take time to be with God our dwelling place through all generations.

2

And then this. Teach us to make our days count means God will teach us that we have limits. Verses 3 through 6 speak of the frailty of humanity. Verse 6 compares our lives to grass that is here in the morning and withered at night. In the near east, a night rain can cause a carpet of green grass to spring up in the morning but the hot sun of the day will cause it to wither and die by nightfall.⁴ So our lives, like grass, spring up for 70 or 80 years and then we are gone. We do not live forever. We are frail and we have limits. 

I know Scripture says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”, but that’s true only to an extent. I can’t jump off this building and expect to fly. I can’t walk to New York in two minutes. There are all sorts of things I cannot do. 

To be sure I can do anything He calls me to do – He will strengthen me – if He calls me to walk to New York He will give me the strength to do it. 

But we have to realize that we have limits - not just physical, but emotional and relational and some of us are living outside those limits. We are pushing ourselves so hard that we think we are supermen, able to live for ever and do anything. We can’t. We can’t expect to work 50-hour work weeks and not expect it to take a toll on us physically, emotionally and relationally. We cannot expect to go from 6 in the morning to 12 at night and not pay a price. 

Making our days count means we recognize that we are frail humans with limits.

Teach us to number our days - means that we remember where our home is. In God we find our safety and our security. It means we realize that we recognize our limits.

3

What else does it mean? Lord teach us to number our days means that we must remember who we answer to. Verses 7-9: “We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan.”

These verses are true for the situation in which the Israelites found themselves. Do you remember how they had disobeyed God, sinned against Him by refusing to go into the promised land? They didn’t trust God and so as a result God said you will wander the desert for 40 years and every adult 20 years and over will die in the wilderness. And it is this experience that Moses is writing about. There were 603,000 men 20 years of age and older and every one of them died under the wrath of God - they finished their years with a moan not being able to enter the promised land. 

Thanks be to God that this is not our testimony. Thanks be to God that the wrath of God has been answered, satisfied and taken away from us through the cross of Christ, so we do not end our days in a moan but with a shout of triumph! 

But the text calls us to remember that the wrath of God is very real, that God is sovereign and powerful and we need to remember who we answer to. The Israelites forgot and as a result they ended their days in a moan. 

Let’s remember that we are answerable to God. So when we think about numbering our days, making our days count we need to ask ourselves are we being available for Him and to Him? I think this is key for us. 

Understand that Scripture is not against work, work is important. But it’s not most important. God is not against leisure, rest is important. But it’s not most important. God is not against you taking time for yourself and family, but He does want to know - are you available? If He calls you, are you available? 

Or is your schedule so booked that when He calls He gets a busy signal? Does this describe you? Dr J. Grant Howard writes, “Some people … take on too many relationships and too many responsibilities. They enroll in too many courses, hold down too many jobs, volunteer for too many tasks, make too many appointments, serve on too many committees, have too many friends. They are trying to be all things to all men all at once all by themselves.”⁵

Are you available to God? If He calls you to be part of a church project, or church leadership, teach a class or help someone in need, or give a call of encouragement to someone who is down, or respond to a crisis, are you available? Or is your schedule so booked up that you every time He calls He gets that message, “Our operators are all busy at this time, please hold the line, your call is important to us”?

Remember you answer to Him and He expects you to be available when He calls. Are we able for God to interrupt our schedules? 

For some of us this will mean that we will need to clean up our calendars and say no to some things so that we are available to God when He calls us. That we actually leave blanks in our daytimers, when nothing is planned or scheduled and then we need to offer it to God. 

Be careful - if we leave blanks we are sometimes liable to fill it with television or some other nonsense, but leave blanks and then offer it to God, saying, “Father, what do you want me to do with this time today? It would be a privilege to use it on behalf of your Kingdom.” God’s intention might be for us to use the time to pray, to meditate, to rest, to serve, to parent, to tell of the good news, or a thousand other ways of cooperating with His eternal purposes. 

Being useful to God and other people is a large part of what life is meant to be. And yet usefulness is nine-tenths availability. When others need help, they don’t need it two days from now. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes this, “We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God,. God will be constantly crossing our paths and cancelling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions … It is part of the discipline of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service and that we do not assume that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by God.”⁶

To do what God calls us to do and accomplish cannot be done in the booked up, highly scheduled life in which many of us live. He is asking us to walk the second mile, to carry other’s burdens, to witness to the truth at any opportunity, and to teach our children when we sit, walk, lie and stand – and all of that means that we have time to be available. God expects us to be available to Him.

My friends, the Ministry of Transport often give us reminders on those changeable signs over Highway 401 to buckle up or not to tailgate. One of the best they post is a simple one that applies to driving as well as life – it reads, ‘It’s not a race”. 

So time is a gift from God and we are free to use it – so let’s use it wisely, let’s use it so that it counts, with an eye firmly fixed on Him, our dwelling place, realizing that we are finite and seeking make ourselves available to Him when He calls. 

O Lord teach us to number our days for you.   Amen. 

1. Richard A. Swenson, Margin, (U.S.A.: NavPress, 1992) page 146

2. Quoted by Michael Cassidy in an address given in November 1999 in Acton Ontario.

3. Richard A. Swenson in Margin page 148.

4. James Boice, Psalms, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1996) page 742.

5. Richard A. Swenson in Margin page 83.

6. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1954) page 99.

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