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As another year comes to a close you’re probably saying, “This year went so fast.” I used to wonder if the years slowed down at some point but enough years have gone by to convince me that it’s not going to happen. They just get faster and faster. Do the arithmetic and work out how many years it’s taken you to get to this point and then double it. There’s nothing surer, like the return journey in a car, those second set of years will role by quicker than the first.
Psalm 90 is well worth reflecting on: “For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night . . . The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away” (Psalm 90:4, 10). But now look at the Psalmist’s prayer: “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom . . . Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days” (Psalm 90:12, 14).
I think part of what it means to gain a heart of wisdom is to gain perspective on life in a way that changes us. In other words, it’s one thing to intellectually acknowledge that life goes by quick but it’s quite another to allow that knowledge to transform us. Many people—Christians I’m sure—go through life acknowledging the quickness of life but never actually allow that so-called wisdom to transform them (see James 3:13).
The realization that life is failing—and quickly!—should ultimately lead us to true wisdom, namely, believing that nothing else will satisfy us in this life apart from God’s unfailing love. Knowing that should then lead us to ask, “May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands” (Psalm 90:17). So we “work.” But our work will go by very quick. Our ultimate satisfaction must not be in our work but in the Lord’s unfailing love. Yet we ask the Lord that our work will count.