Teach us to number our days, so that we may get a heart of wisdom

​Here's a newspaper particle that I wrote for the local paper. It's also on Facebook too.
 
“Teach us to number our days, so that we may get a heart of wisdom.” --- Psalm 90:12
 
Numbering our days. This phrase comes up throughout our English language.
“Your days are numbered!”
“Enjoy these days because they grow up quick.” 
“He’s in his last days.” 
In this little chapter of my life as a pastor, I’ve had the opportunity to pray the words of Psalm 90 with all kinds of people—the young, the old, the married, the single, mothers and fathers, grandparents and great grandparents, the sick and the healthy, the joyful and the sorrowful—asking that the Lord would teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. But what does that mean?
It’s a reminder that all your days string together. From Day 1 to Day 36,501, each day is full of its own possibilities, yes, and it follows on the heels of the day before it.
It’s a challenge to value every day. When our loved ones pass suddenly, we value that they did not suffer long. When our loved ones decline slowly, we value that we get the grace of time with them.
It’s an honest admission that your days will one day end. Psalm 90:12 declares, it is wise to admit one’s own mortality. It’s foolish to avoid our mortality. It’s wise to admit it.
More than all that, for the Christian, we find that an honest admission of our mortality turns us once again toward Jesus Christ who died to redeem our mortal bodies and was raised to life and immortality in order to raise us to new life. 
And how is this done?
Just like the Psalmist would remind us, we cannot merely catch this thought and move on. Instead, we gain wisdom from this thought as it comes back to us in every chapter of life, as we move through the life that we are numbering. As we number our days, then and there wisdom comes, not in one grand gesture, but instead in bits and pieces along the way.
 
Peace,
Pastor Paul Muther, Trinity Lutheran Janesville