Make Every Day Count

Psalm 90

One thing I have realized as I get older is that time seems to go by a lot quicker than when I was younger.  Back then a week was quite a long time, and a year was an eternity. Now the years just speed by. We can hardly turn around and another year has passed.  So many of my parent’s generation are passing, and I realize how short life really is. In our psalm for today, the only psalm written by Moses, he reflects on the brevity of life, and the eternality of God.

This psalm was probably written later in Moses’s life, and he starts off by stating that his whole life has been centered on God, and how He has been his refuge (vs 1).   Though his first years were ones of ease in Pharaoh’s royal palaces, his later years were difficult, leading the Israelites in the wilderness. Moses knew that we need to have God as our sanctuary and place of protection, as no matter how long or short our life may be, we need His help to get through.  His psalm contains a prayer for God to have mercy on us frail human beings, living in this sin-cursed world.

God is infinite.  He existed from all time and eternity past, long before the earth or even the universe existed, as He is the One who created them (vs 2). God will continue on for all future eternity, as well. He is not bound by time and its limits (vs 4-6). As Moses said here in verse 4, and years later Peter repeats in II Peter 3:8, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day for God. He is outside and beyond the limits of our time constraints. We may think that things we pray for are delayed in coming, but they are right on schedule for God.

As Moses has established the fact that God has existed from all eternity past, and will for eternity future, he reminds us that our time here on earth is brief. Like the grass or other plant or wildflower - it is here today and gone tomorrow (vs 5-6). James compares the brevity of life to a vapor or mist, like a puff of smoke that vanishes in an instant (James 4:14).  We are only here on earth for a very brief time. No one knows how long their life will be. We could live to be over 100, or we could die later today. None of us knows. We all live under a sentence of death from the day we were born.  There is no escaping it for anyone. Until the Lord returns, everyone will face death one day.

That being said, this isn’t meant to be depressing, but rather an encouragement to make every day count.  Many of us have heard the question that if you knew you only had six months, or only a month to live, what would you do?  Some have made a mental list of what they would do. As believers and followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, what would or should we do?  Not knowing how long we have, whether decades or days, we should make our days here on earth count for eternity. Are we only concerned with having a good time, what’s in our closet, or what we will eat?  Or are we concerned with what will last for eternity - namely souls? People have said that we can’t take anything with us to heaven, but there is one thing we can bring, and that is other people. Be sure that each day that the Lord gives us will count for Him, His Kingdom, and for eternity.

Perhaps you do not know the Lord Jesus as your personal Savior.  As our psalm has shown the brevity of life, do not put off the salvation of your soul until the last minute, thinking you have time for God later.  We do not know when our last moment will be. Our last day could be today. What a fearful thing it would be to be face your dying breath, and know you are spiritually unprepared to face your Maker!

My one goal in life is to not come to the Lord empty-handed, but instead hear His words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Make every day count!