Number Our Days

We count our lives from things that have already happened. We know our age, the anniversaries, and how long it has been since the diagnosis, the funeral or the move. The number Moses asks for in this psalm runs the other way, toward the end, and none of us has it.

"So teach us to number our days." That word "So" at the front points back to what came before, and what came before is not gentle. "We are consumed by thine anger," he says, and two verses later, "we spend our years as a tale that is told." He has already done the sums anyone can do: "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow." Threescore and ten is seventy, and fourscore is eighty. So a man who has just written down the usual length of a life is asking God to teach him how to count.

Earlier he set our short lives beside God's far longer view: "a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night." He asks to be taught "that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom," yet the psalm never writes the lesson out. Nobody in it is ever given the number of their days, not even the man who asked.

What he is given is a place to stand while he counts. The psalm opens, "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations," and soon after his request he prays, "O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days." We will not be told how many days we have, but we can ask God to fill them with His mercy. So pray it with him: teach us to count our days, Lord, and fill each one with You.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 298 is Peace Beyond Understanding (Philippians 4:7).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two