OCTOBER 5, 2015
Seconds Count
Show
me, Lord, my life’s end.— Psalm 39:4
Read:
Psalm
39:4-13
At the age of 59 my friend Bob Boardman wrote,
“If the 70 years of a normal life span were squeezed into a single 24-hour day,
it would now be 8:30 in the evening in my life. . . . Time is slipping by so
rapidly.”
The difficulty in admitting that our time on
earth is limited inspired the creation of “Tikker”—a wristwatch that tells you
what time it is, calculates your estimated normal life span, and displays a
running countdown of your remaining time. It is advertised as the watch “that
counts down your life, just so you can make every second count.”
In Psalm 39, David grappled with the brevity
of his life, saying, “Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting my life is” (v. 4). He described his life span as no
longer than the width of his hand, as only a moment to God, and merely a breath
(v. 5). David concluded, “But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you”
(v. 7).
The clock is ticking. Now is the time to seek
God’s power to help us become the people He wants us to be. Finding hope in our
eternal God gives meaning for our lives today.
In what ways am I wasting time? In what ways am I making my
days count? In what areas do I need to make changes?
The time to live for Jesus is now.
INSIGHT:
One reason the Psalms are loved by so many is that they
often capture the real emotion of people facing real situations. It gives many
of us comfort to know that we are not alone in our struggles and reactions to
life. In today’s psalm, David comments on the brevity of life and has an
understandable reaction. When we look back on our lives, many of us lament our
mistakes and wasted efforts. But David reminds us that in the face of all our
sins, it is God who remains our hope. No matter how much of a mess we have made
of our lives, it is never too much of a mess for God to redeem. J.R. Hudberg
Source: Our Daily Bread 2015
