The Too-Many Ways the Lord Is Teaching Me to Number My Days
When I officiate weddings, the brides and grooms always seem young. Yet I keep noticing something in that moment when I ask the father of the bride, “Who gives this young woman away?” and he answers, “Her mother and I.” The fathers and mothers seem to be getting younger and younger.
Of course, they are not getting younger. I’m getting older.
Which means if you are over a certain age, I might owe you an apology. If you are around 65 years old today, I’m sorry. I apologize because if you go back about 15 or 20 years to when you were younger than 50 years old (and I was younger than 30), then I was probably confused about your age. I know it’s not kind to admit, but I probably thought you were already 65 back then. Please forgive me.
This hit me the other day because something at work got me thinking about one of my seminary professors. So, I looked online for his current age. Today he is 68 years old. Today. Something didn’t seem right because 15 years ago I thought he was already 65. How, I wondered, did he only age 3 years over the last 15? Hence the apology.
“In so many more ways than I would like, the Lord has been teaching me to number my days.”
Where am I going with all this? The psalmist asks God, “Teach us to number my days.” He requests this so that we might, “get a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12). I haven’t necessarily spent a lot of time asking God to teach me to number my days, and I wouldn’t say I’ve necessarily gained a heart of wisdom, even though I hope I’m wiser than I was a decade ago. But I can say this: in so many more ways than I would like, the Lord has been teaching me to number my days.
The other day, for instance, the news app on my phone suggested an article from The Wall Street Journal called “The Age When You Stop Feeling Young.” The subtitle indicated that the oldest millennials (of which I am one) have reached the decade when people often start noticing signs of aging. I couldn’t tell whether the suggestion to read this article was altogether random or my phone was taunting me.
I noticed my age this last summer while our family vacationed at the beach. (Beaches have a way of showing us our age, don’t they?) Our family often plays checkers on vacation, and my oldest daughter beat me, and, no, I didn’t let her win or let her have that triple jump. They both just happened. Also at the beach, my oldest son and I went for several runs, some together and some by ourselves. Whether together or on our own, he always ran faster and usually further. No, I didn’t let him beat me either.
To some extent he ran faster because I’ve had a hip injury hampering my training since the spring. Here also my age shows. I coach a local track team, and I got hurt as I participated in a sprint workout. Since then, I’ve been doing physical therapy off and on. When I showed up for my final session of PT, the receptionist told me I had met my insurance deductible. I’m glad to have my insurance costs reduced, but it made me feel like people probably feel when asked if they want the senior discount. Meeting your insurance deductible is not a prize you want to win.
Soon, when I look at my wedding photos, the father who gave his daughter away will be younger than me.
I could go on and on about getting older, but I suspect that if you were on the receiving end of my apology because you’re older than 65, you already know everything I’m saying—and you could add more stories of your own. And if you’re 25 right now, the more I keep blabbing about the signs of aging, the more you’ll think I am already 65.
“Surely gaining a heart of wisdom must mean more than realizing you can’t outrun your teenagers.”
When Moses asks the Lord, “Teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom,” he does not mean, “Lord, help us to list all the ways we feel old, that we might feel bad”—even if numbering our days and listing ways we feel old does have some overlap. Surely gaining a heart of wisdom must mean more than realizing you can’t outrun your teenagers.
Indeed, it does mean more.
When we sing the stanza that asks God to teach us to number our days, we also ask for the blessing of the Lord to serve him with purpose to the end of our days. “Let the favor of the LORD our God be upon us,” we sing. “And establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!” (Ps. 90:17).
As we age, rather than cultivating gloom and apathy, we can pray that whatever God calls us to do, we will do it with joy and vigor. We can ask God to let our extra trips to the doctor remind us that God watches over the lilies and even more so watches over us as the Great Physician. And we can pray that whatever our hands find to do, we can do it with all our might, knowing that our labor in the Lord is not in vain (Eccles. 9:10; 1 Cor. 15:58).
When you feel the signs of aging, are these the kinds of prayers you pray? You can. You and I have a choice. As my phone reminded me, this may be the decade I stop feeling young, but it doesn’t have to be the decade I stop serving the Lord with zeal.
* Photo by Eric Rothermel on Unsplash