O LORD, make me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am!
Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!”
Psalm 39:4-5
Most of us have a very unhealthy relationship with time. Namely, we have a naive working belief that we have plenty of it.
“I’ll get to it tomorrow.”
“Someday I’ll…”
The reality is that our life is, as it says in the Scripture above, “a few handbreadths.”
Psalm 144:4 says it this way, “Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.”
So many of us are in a rut where we follow the same routine day after day, week after week, knowing that we are meant for so much more. We know that God has built us for greatness, but somehow we ended up here and here is comfortable. Here is known. To get out of the rut would require action, courage, discomfort, and risk. That dream God put in our heart, that project we’ve had on the drawing board, that business we were born to start, that mission we once burned to see made a reality… we’ll get to it… someday.
When we have a healthy perspective on time, we realize that someday may never come and “this is the day the Lord has made.” To be the man God intends for us to be, we need to carpe diem. We must act with urgency, feeling the shortness of our time nipping at our heels.
In a playoff basketball game, the most exciting time are the closing minutes. Everyone is operating with such urgency because they know the time is running out and it’s win or go home. Everyone’s level of play elevates. More gets done in the final two or three minutes than the entire game to that point.
That is how we need to live our lives. The clock is running down. We’ve got one shot! Let’s make it count!
Here’s your exercise for the day: Think about your funeral. If your funeral were today, who would come? Would it be a big crowd or small? Who would speak? What would they say? Would they be lying or would they be genuine? What would happen the next day with the legacy you had built? Would there be a legacy?
Write down what you want that day to be like. Write a prayer. And make the hard decisions to make it happen.
Soli deo gloria
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What do you know you should be doing that you have been putting off? What step are you going to take today to begin?
What do you know you should be doing that you have been putting off? What step are you going to take today to begin?