Cancer Blog #51
By Brian Zimmerman
Begun on July 31, 2021
Email: dyingman1@yahoo.com
My Dying Words
Entry #51 – Teach Us
August 12, 2022
[Psa 90:10-12 NASB95] 10 As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, Or if due to strength, eighty years, Yet their pride is [but] labor and sorrow; For soon it is gone and we fly away. 11 Who understands the power of Your anger And Your fury, according to the fear that is due You? 12 So teach us to number our days, That we may present to You a heart of wisdom
We come to another selection from Psalm 90, a psalm full of regret, suffering, and pleas for mercy. Here the psalmist pens what is now a famous passage, viz., the expected length of our lives – sometimes 70 years, maybe by good health 80. Yet, shorter or longer, those years will be full of hard work and sorrow followed by our death. Not exactly a happy, clappy view of life, but one I believe it is important to contemplate. I worked in home health care as a physical therapist for 6 years and went into literally hundreds of home in my area. Of course, you might point out that I had a biased sample as I was seeing only the sick and dying and not the healthy aged, nonetheless, unless you drop dead in perfect health at say, age 60, I dare say that you will find that at some point you will be in that weakened state, and will likely say with the psalmist that life is never easy and often full of sorrows, the worst being the ones we create. That is us living in likely the most peaceful and affluent culture in the history of the world.
Instead of believing that God is the happy, clappy sort, we are enjoined by the psalmist to remember that our Creator is also our Judge. He brooks no sin in His presence and warns us of the price of its stain – His anger. And so we reach verse 12: a warning and instruction that is just as germane to us now as it was in the psalmist’s day: a request that God help us to number our days so that we might somehow gain a heart of wisdom. Perhaps the idea of numbering our days seems somewhat abstract. Here’s my thoughts on that elusive task: every morning I get up and drink 3 or 4 (or more) mugs of tea. But, only in the first one do I put one teaspoonful of sugar. In the rest, I use in each one packet of sweetener. Here’s the surprising thing, though: I’m amazed when I lift the lid of the sugar bowl and see that it needs to be refilled. When that happens, I often blink at the bowl and think to myself, “Where did all the sugar go? I use only one teaspoonful each day.” And that to me is the story of our lives: God gives us a bowl full of days, not telling us how many are in the bowl, but it seems to have so many. Each day is a spoonful of life from our bowl of days, and sooner than most of us are prepared to believe, our bowl is empty. The days run out and we are finished. Yet, as I’ve tried to emphasize, a heart of wisdom can come from watching that bowl of days being emptied and realizing that we must be ready for when the time of that final spoonful comes because at that point, we fly away. “Be ready”, God here is telling us.
Next: God’s mercy in our Frailty and Faithfulness