Are We Arrogant With Our Time? Numbering Our Days Bravely

I scrolled through the photos on my phone quickly, searching for a moment from last summer. A trip to the museum. It couldn’t be too far back.

But it was. Apparently I talk a lot of photos.

I kept scrolling. Christmas, Thanksgiving, fall. Without intending to, I was engaging in the story of my life over the past few months, so many moments I almost forgot. And I paused at this one.

My dad and my daughter, Brooklyn. Hot cakes straight off the camping grill, brimming with huckleberries, purple-gold we patiently procured from the mountainside the day prior. The whole thing soaked straight through with sweetness.

I looked at my phone’s timestamp of the photo; August 14 – two weeks before my dad had would have a heart attack.

In two weeks that seemingly healthy grandpa would be wheeled in for emergency quadruple bypass surgery. This family, three generations traipsing around Mt. Adams in search of the coveted huckleberry, would soon be gathered around a hospital bed, spend weeks in the ICU hoping for healing that would never quite follow the doctor’s orders.

Just around the corner, life would begin to leave my dad, slow and steady. The hope and the expectation doctors delivered dissolved as my dad’s heart, and thus his body, refused to respond as anticipated.

That man in the photo had no idea he’d spend over half of the next 6 months in a hospital bed. He’d lose more that 25% of his body weight. The man without a single prescription to his name would very soon take handfuls of pills at a times, multiple times a day. He had no idea what hurt, what hope and what hard lay ahead for him. None of us did.

I paused my scrolling to ponder that for a minute. That not knowing is kind of extraordinary now. The proverbial mountain in front of him was enormous, more treacherous than anything he had ever seen in his 65 years. How could it be so large and looming and close, our toes set right at its base, and yet we were all clueless to its existence?

But that is often how life serves up these things, isn’t it? We spend loads of time planning and organizing our schedules, we spend money on planners and calendars and apps to help us size up and nail down the days ahead and the truth is – there are mountains large and looming that could clear our neat and tidy calendars in one second. We never really know what lies ahead.

So do we stop our planning in the realization of all we don’t know? Of course not. We can and should seek to steward our days well, but the grip we hold on our days matters. Here are a few things I’m learning in this season that are helpful to keep in mind.

 

We must grow in wisdom here

The shocks of our life are a healthy unsettling, a solemn reminder to, as the Psalmist said, “Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12 NLT) The brevity of life should not produce fear, but wisdom in us. Plan well. Steward well. Hold these days and moments and memories well because life is indeed short. We forget fast and the reminders are important.

Not knowing is a gift

We tend to rail against not knowing what is ahead. We yearn for knowledge just a little beyond our reach like Eve did, but the not knowing is a gift. God does not expect us to live with the entire weight of the future in the moments of today. In the photo above we enjoyed those pancakes without regard. The weight of all that was ahead didn’t hang heavy on the edges of our togetherness. We simply enjoyed it. His Sovereignty in the now and in the future, His red-letter promise to be near, with us always, is more than enough (Matthew 28:20). And the limits of our knowledge today is grace.

We hold time arrogantly

Without even realizing it, we do. We reflexively believe there will be more time, more days, more memories made. On one hand, what a gift to live so long in the steady continuance of time that our minds naturally assume there is always more. God has placed eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). But Scripture also reminds us to be aware of our arrogance here (Proverbs 27:1, James 4). Our time on this earth is limited.  It is critical that we keep this in mind.

We will not fear here

How should a healthy understanding of this reality – that hard things, huge mountains, and limited time lay ahead – change us? We might be prone to worry. Perhaps we’ve already tried that. But Jesus’ words remind us, “…which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” (Matthew 6:27). We know Truth greater than our present circumstances. We believe that through hard seasons, unknown and unexpected challenges, endurance produces maturity and completion in us. (James 1:4) And we agree with Paul:

“For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 CSB

This is how we struggle well, friend. Whether we are blind to the mountain in front of us, thick in the midst of a strenuous climb, or somewhere on the decent, we must choose our focus carefully, remind ourselves of the Truth that supersedes our momentary challenges.

We don’t strangle time. We can’t hold it captive or worry more into existence. But we can live well with what we have been given.

Let’s view our days wisely, rightly, friend. Let’s learn to number them, and fully remember that they are numbered. And let’s walk them out with the greatest humility, seeking His will for each one we are given. We’ve been given one more day to fear Him, to honor Him, to glorify Him with the breath and life in us today. May we do it joyfully, earnestly, bravely. One day at a time.

{Note: My dad has been given a miracle. More words will surely come of that in time, but the learning and growing here is certainly part of that. What a Savior.}