teach us to number our days　

On this New Year’s Eve, I am exactly 19,257 days old. Such a calculation as this, which can be done on the Internet in seconds, is obviously not to which Moses is referring in Psalm 90:12. He’s not talking about randomly counting days, but about a specific way of counting.

So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Moses is speaking about the generation which he had been leading. They were doomed to die in the wilderness (90:7,9,11), because they had lent their ear to the majority of the spies. Forty years they would, therefore, continue to roam and everyone, twenty years and older, would perish in the desert (Num.14:29-35). Their days were literally counted. Who, for instance, was thirty years old, when the spies gave their story, knew that he would not become older than seventy years. And anyone who was already forty years old at that time, would not become older than 80 years (90:10). Counting the days in Psalm 90:12 is to be understood as a sign in connection with God’s promises. If God says that He will give them the land, He will do so, all negative advice of experts, notwithstanding. And when God speaks of a stay of forty years in the wilderness, then that will certainly be forty years, no less but no more, either. Thus should man, in the light of God’s pronouncements, be counting the days–counting as God counts! For God, a thousand years is as yesterday, says Moses (Ps.90:4). Peter underscores this, when he talks about the delay of the coming of the Lord. It should not escape us, he writes, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day (2Pet.3:8). In other words, since Christ’s ascension, according to God’s reckoning of time, almost two days have passed–a significant time period! For, would not the LORD after two days, return in the third day and revive the people (Hos.6:1-3; cp Ps.90:13)? As a woman “in joyful expectancy,” we conclude, at the threshold of 2014, that the “due date” has come very close. Everything in the affairs of the world, especially in the Middle East, confirm that the day is near. Isn’t it great to live at this time in history? Not because of the forecasts of human experts. They are, by definition, missing the clues. No, our expectation is based on what God has spoken. He’s going to intervene and realize His intention, at His time. That gives guidance and perspective. That counts and with that we do our reckoning!

Delen: