Week 12
Teach Us to Number Our Days
Psalm 90:10–17
“So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
Psalm 90:10–17 (NKJV)
Psalm 90 measures human life against the eternity of God. Our years pass quickly, and the honest remembrance of death strips away the illusion that time is an unlimited possession.
Moses does not ask merely to count days but to be taught to number them. Awareness of finitude becomes wisdom only when learned before the eternal Lord.
Numbering our days does not require panic or relentless productivity. Hurry may be another attempt to deny limitation by forcing one finite life to contain everything.
Wisdom asks what faithfulness belongs to this day. We cannot obey yesterday again or live tomorrow in advance; grace meets us in the present portion entrusted to us.
The psalm moves from mortality to mercy: ‘Return, O Lord’ and ‘satisfy us early with Your mercy.’ Our brief lives become spacious when steadfast love, rather than achievement, becomes their deepest satisfaction.
Moses asks for joy proportionate to sorrow. Biblical hope neither forgets affliction nor believes affliction deserves the final measure of our days.
He also asks God to establish the work of our hands. Our work is temporary, yet what is offered within God’s purpose may receive significance beyond our ability to preserve it.
Receive today as gift rather than entitlement. Ask for wisdom to choose its faithful work, courage to leave some things unfinished, and joy in the mercy that outlasts every numbered day.
In Conversation with C. S. Lewis
Writing during wartime, Lewis argued that danger does not create human mortality but makes an always-present condition harder to ignore. Faithfulness continues amid uncertainty through ordinary, rightly ordered work.
Psalm 90 turns that realism into prayer. The eternal God teaches wisdom, satisfies with mercy, restores joy, and establishes the labor of finite people.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus,
Eternal God, teach me to number my days without fear, denial, or frantic striving.
Satisfy me with Your steadfast mercy. Restore joy where sorrow has consumed time, and show me the faithful work belonging to today.
Establish what serves Your purpose, release what must remain unfinished, and let the beauty of the Lord rest upon us. Amen.
Think and Walk with Christ
Let truth become wisdom.
Return often to Psalm 90:10–17. Ask the Spirit to renew not only what you believe, but how you see and live.