A Schedule for Life

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:12 (NIV)

You might be surprised to discover that this passage has a lot to do with your homework (yes, God cares about your grades).

The Psalmist is reminded that we only have so much life to spend. No matter how you spend them, you only have 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week, 52 weeks in a year. Time works a lot like money. You have to budget it in order to control how it's spent. But there is one important difference. You can put your money in a bank and save it indefinitely. Time on, on the other hand, just keeps moving past never to be seen again. That makes our decisions on how we spend our time much more important.

You only get one chance for each moment. You can always make more money, but time is gone for good.

The goal here is not to create a guilt trip but to consider new opportunities. If we don't number our days, think about and plan how we will use our time, then we will miss opportunities. This Psalm was written as the people of Israel were being judged about using their time badly. Their unplanned lives led them to be uncaring toward each other and indifferent toward God. They wasted the time they had for the necessities of life and then, in their last minute panic to catch up (think late night cram sessions), they lost the creative and relational time they should have had.

We don't merely number, plan, our limited time so we won't get in trouble. We do it so we won't miss the opportunities to really live life. We don't live to work. We work to live. So it's important to schedule our lives so we can spend our time on God, people, and the joys of life.