Psalm 90:12 (NLT) “Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.”
If we think about the brevity of our lives it will impact what we decide to do with our lives. We live as if we are going to live forever. We spend our time as if we are always going to have our kids. We spend our time as if we are always going to have each other. We spend our time as if we are always going to have our parents or our job or whatever.
We spend our time as if our time was unlimited. We know it is not but you sometimes can’t tell we know that by the way we act.
In school you numbered the days before the semester was over. You numbered the days before you were married. Any time there is a deadline at work, you number your days.
What if we lived this way – with our days numbered? If we live this way, we gain wisdom in what we should put in or leave out of our schedule. If we live without wisdom, we will fill our days with things we will regret later.
I can’t spend my time doing that. I need to spend no time doing that. I need to spend more time doing that. I need to begin time doing that.
Remembering our time is limited provides us with wisdom to know how to spend our limited time. My time is limited so I need to limit how I spend my time.
My money is limited so I need to limit how I spend my money. We know that with money but we seem to forget to think that way about our time.
Let’s do us all a huge favor. Let’s fast forward our lives to the end. Lets all instantaneously gain wisdom. If we will take this wisdom that we normally don’t get until the end of our lives and bring it back to our current stage of life, we will make better decisions as to how we spend our time – which is our life.
Bronnie Ware is a nurse that works with patients in hospice. So she worked daily with people who had only weeks or days or hours to live and asked her patients – do you have any regrets?
She began to hear a pattern.
The second most common regret was – I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. This comment came from every male patient. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship.
If we don’t learn to number our days we will miss spend our lives and we will have an avoidable regret.
The number one regret was – I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not to the life others expected of me.
This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honored even half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realize, until they no longer have it.
We have fast forwarded to the end of your lives. You now have the wisdom that comes from living as if your days are numbered. So what are you going to do with that?