Numbering Our Days

Teach us to number our days, that we may get us a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12

My husband is a numbers guy. Feed him information involving measurements or numbers, and his brain happily commences to analyze, and figure, and calculate.

I’m not that guy. But when the Lord whispered Teach us to number our days, I figured I’d best try my hand at analytical thinking.

There are 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week. These add up to 168 hours in a week’s time. Times those 168 hours by 52 weeks and it comes to 8,736 hours spent living and breathing in a year.

Those hours zoom by at warp speed. If in doubt, look back. Where did your yesterday go?

And what have we done with all these hours God bestows upon us? With the help of AI’s Overview, I discovered that the average adult sleeps between 6.8 to 7.8 hours per night. Roughly 81.8 minutes of our waking hours are spent eating and drinking as combined primary and secondary activities (i.e.: eating while doing other things).

People drive approximately one hour per day, or roughly 21,900 minutes a year. AI also reports that we waste 58.6 minutes per year stopped at red lights (closer to 10% of total trip time), which over a lifetime adds up to months, even years. My husband thinks their numbers are grossly underestimated.

It goes on to say that a person typically spends 92 days, (roughly a third of a year) on the toilet throughout their lifetime. Women spend an average of four hours per day primping and enhancing their appearance. Men take several minutes to half an hour each day to shave, depending on personal preference, shaving method, and hair growth rate.

The average work week is forty hours, or 2080 working hours per year, (not counting break times and commuting). “A new poll says the average American spends 6 hours a day consuming content . . . nearly a quarter of their lives, or more than a third of their waking hours streaming movies and TikTok, reading books or listening to the radio.” [i] 

That’s a lot of numbers sloshing around in my head. Perhaps I should take a ten-minute break, which adds up to 3650 minutes a year, 3660 in a leap year, if I take one every day.

Does any of this really matter? It matters to God. Turns out, He Himself is into numbers.

God made, produced, built, operated, and arranged the worlds and the reaches of space and the ages of time. He measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, marked off the heavens with a [nine inch] span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance. [ii] He set seasons and times for every purpose under heaven and determined the allotted periods of time and the fixed boundaries of all nations. [iii] 

Do you think numbers don’t count with Him? In Noah’s day, He made it rain 40 days and 40 nights. “Moses spent 40 years in Egypt to become somebody, 40 years in the wilderness becoming nobody, losing strength, 40 years more in the wilderness, finding strength in God.” [iv]

God gave specific measurements and instructions for the things He wanted built and records the exact dimensions of His heavenly city, the New Jerusalem. [v] 

He determined and recorded in His book the number of months and days appointed for us. He numbers the hairs on our heads and measures us not according to outward appearance but measures our heart, our works, our talents, our works. [vi]

He invites us, through Christ, to know and experience the height, depth, breadth, and width of His love that far surpasses human capacity to understand or measure. [vii] 

God casts His Seed upon the soil of human hearts so we might produce a thirty, sixty, and hundred-fold Kingdom harvest. He leaves the ninety-nine to go after one who is lost. He urges us to forgive a brother who sins against us, not seven times, but seventy times seven. [viii]

He created the heavens and earth in six days and rested the seventh. In these end times God is releasing, in sequence: seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls judgments to cleanse this earth of the Antichrist’s strongholds. [ix]

Earth is our stomping ground. It is training camp for the eternal. Here, in the hashing out of good and evil, flesh and spirit, worldly and Godly wisdom, we learn to live with an eternal perspective.

Worldly wisdom says, “Let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” [x] And for what? So that when we stand before the Lord, all we have to show from our earthly pilgrimage is bulging bellies, swelled heads, and withered hearts and spirits? I heard it said that “every heart has an expiration date.” Natural life is fleeting—all that makes it attractive, [its kindness, its goodwill, its mercy from God, its glory and comeliness, however good] is like the flower of the field . . . the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. [xi]

Lord, teach us (now) to number our days so we can get us hearts of wisdom.

The man who earnestly seeks Wisdom from above (Christ), and through understanding “finds Him and takes hold of Him and possesses Him”, is blessed. Earthly riches, no matter how valuable or desirable, fail to compare with the true riches found in Him. In one hand He offers long life, in the other, riches and honor. He guides us down delightful paths and satisfies us in all His ways. He is the tree of life to those who embrace Him. Hold Him tightly and He makes us happy.

Keep sight of wisdom and understanding. Focus, focus, focus. The ability to make wise decisions and discern are gifts from God. They nourish and sustain our inner life and keep us from stumbling so we can go on our way safely. (Proverbs 3:13-26 paraphrased) [xiii]

Photo by Antoine Dautry on Unsplash

[i] Content Consumption: We’re Spending ¼ Of Our Lives Doing It; by Lauren Beckham Falcone 11/11/2024

[ii] Hebrews 1:2; Isaiah 40:12; Acts 17:24; Genesis 1; Psalm 147:4; Psalm 50:10

[iii] Ecclesiastes 3; Acts 17:26

[iv] Author unknown; Acts 7:23, 30; Deuteronomy 34:7, 10–12; Exodus; Joshua 5:6

[v] Revelation 11:1; Genesis 6:13–22; Exodus 25; 2 Chronicles 2: Ezekiel 40–48; Hebrews 8:5; Revelation 21:16–17

[vi] Psalm 139:16; Job 14:5; Romans 2:6–8; Zechariah 1:16; Daniel 5:25–27; Matthew 10:30

[vii] Ephesians 3:18–19

[viii] Mark 4:3–20; Matthew 18:12,22

[ix] Genesis; Proverb 16:11 - Bible Hub.com; Study Bible; Revelation 6, 8, 9, 11, 16

[x] Isaiah 22:13

[xi] Isaiah 40:6–8

[xiii] Proverbs 3:13-Gill’s Exposition of the Whole Bible; Prov 8:35; James 1:5