Numbering Our Days

Here we are, deep into January. We had a hard frost early in December, and then it warmed up again. Our daffodils and lilac bushes must have felt that winter was over. They started to put out some green leaves. This week the reality of winter hit hard again. Our ornamental plants must have thought, “That was a really short year!”

Aren’t all years short? We’ll be celebrating Ground Hog’s Day soon, and then the Super Bowl, and before you know it the opening of Trout season at Roaring River. Resurrection Sunday will be here before you know it.

Someone named Anonymous once said, “When I was a child, I laughed and wept, time crept. When as a youth, I dreamed and talked, time walked. When I became a full-grown man, time ran. When older still I daily grew, time flew. Soon, I shall be traveling on, time gone.”

I understand what that anonymous author was communicating. If our lives were like the lives of many insects, our time on earth would be twelve short hours. Imagine a lifetime in twelve hours!

Looking at my office clock I calculate that a life lived from six a.m. until midnight would look like this:

At 10:25, you would be ten years old. If you are twenty, it is 11:34 a.m. At 12:42 p.m. you would be twenty-five. By three in the afternoon, you would hit age thirty-five. If you are forty, it is four p.m. For a person of Fifty years the time is 6:25 p.m. Retirement at sixty-five means it is 9:51 p.m. If you are seventy, it is 11:00 p.m.

Somehow, seeing 2025 pass by so quickly has humbled me. When I was a boy, I felt like I had all the time in the world. Looking at the clock through the eyes of an insect helps me to realize how blessed I am to have weeks instead of seconds. But it is also pinpoints where I am in the cycle of life. God did not ordain infinite days for us upon the earth.

It isn’t too late for a New Year’s Resolution. This might be a good resolution: "Every time I check the time, I will remember to live life to the fullest."

“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12.)