Are Your Days Numbered?

Earlier this year I shared with you about my friend dying from cancer. As you might have guessed, losing a friend to cancer before she was even 30 hit me quite deeply. Couple of weeks ago I got the news that the lead singer of the first band I played with died in a diving accident. Two friends gone, within a year…

“So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12, NASB)

What does it mean to number our days? To count them? Try this test. Without taking out a calculator, how many days do you think an average human will live on this earth? If we take 80 years as a normal life span, it’s 29220 days (including leap years). 

That’s not that many, is it? When we start to treasure and account our days to God, the Scripture says that we will present to God a heart of wisdom. The NASB suggests that we already have a heart of wisdom, but some of us are not presenting (showing) it to God in our day to day living.

I personally hold some reservations about deriving any Scriptural interpretations and teaching solely from Psalm 90. Why? Because there are some verses in it that do not apply to us as New Testament believers. For example, verse 8 says “You have placed our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence.” Does that verse apply to us today?

Hebrews 8:11-12 (NASB) “for all will know me, from the least to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more.”

We can see then that not all of Psalm 90 is applicable to us. But how about the admonition to number our days?

“Look carefully then how you walk! Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise (sensible, intelligent people), making the very most of the time [buying up each opportunity], because the days are evil. Therefore do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is.” (Ephesians 5:15-17, Amplified)

In this passage, making most of the time, treasuring and making use of every day, is deemed wise. Whatever measure of wisdom God has given me has largely been the result of this attitude I hold, that everyday is precious and not to be wasted. Try it, it’s amazing how much clearer your thinking becomes when you begin to number your days unto the Lord.

Another practice that will help is journaling. It gives you a good snapshot of where you were before, where you are now, and probably where you will be in the future. You will start to see themes emerge more clearly than if you did not journal. You will also see more of God’s hand at work in your life, just because you decided that you wanted to remember them and took the effort and time to note them down.

One thing about the death of the lead singer of my first band (other than the fact that our reunion tour is gonna be postponed indefinitely) is that it also made me ask questions about what kind of legacy I want to leave behind in this world, and what do I want to invest my time into.

You all know that training people in worship leading is something very important to me. The death of my friend has given me that sense of urgency to codify and set down my worship teachings for people. So I’m officially announcing it to all of you now: I’m writing a book!

This book will explain all the foundational truths that make up my worship teaching. It will include Scripture teachings as well as technical explanations for musicians about how to play REAL worship music, music that really works in ministering to God’s people in worship. This book will take my 13+ years of experience in the worship ministry and distill it so that people can take it and run with it. Just so you know, the last two posts, Why Get Technical? and Worshiping the Heart will certainly be in the book. (In fact, I initially wrote them just for the book, but later decided to share them publicly.)

So pray for me, people, that God will give me the right words to use as I write this book. Pray also that I will use my time effectively to finish this book as soon as possible. Finally, pray that I will be led by the Lord in deciding what to include in the book. Thanks, everyone!