THE return of the change of year reminds us of the prayer of the man of God: “O God, teach me to number my days. So to number them, that I may apply my heart unto wisdom.” (Ps. 90.) He who prays for this acknowledges that of himself he does not do it, and now takes refuge with the God of his life, that He may teach him.
Thus there are three possibilities: Either you have already come to the seriousness and thoughtful numbering of your days, in which case you owe God thanks. For herein is grace, and it makes your heart wise.
Or you do not number them, but are ready to do so, and pray God for it, and God will answer your prayer, and though you are not yet where you would be, you earnestly desire greater seriousness of life.
Or finally you do not number your days, and do not pray, that you might learn to do so, and so you lack the real seriousness of life, and your heart is still foolish.
At ordinary times we pass this by unobservedly. Life is full of changes and chases us with ever changing impressions. Hence in ordinary life our attention is not centered on this point. Everything rather diverts us away from it and scatters our thoughts.
But God the Lord has made divisions in the course of days. A division of weeks, a division of months and also of years, of which naturally the last, because it occurs but once a year, is the most striking, the loudest speaking. Our old and new year.
Neither of these have been instituted by human arbitrariness. God created them when He gave to sun and earth their mutual ordinance.
And so this change of year again is a call, not from men but from God, and again puts the question to us: Are you already so far advanced, that you not merely live your days, but also number them, and in doing so is the seriousness of life, the genuine wisdom ripening in your heart?
One interprets this as though he should turn in upon himself, and say to himself: “I am already of such and such an age. Death begins to come nearer to me. Is my soul prepared, am I safe eternally?”
Surely, such pondering has merit, and numbering of our days may lead to this.
But yet, this can not be the real meaning of the word.
For, taken in this way, this word would only be a call, to those who have reached the half of their days, and who from the zenith of their life gradually go down to their grave.
But it would not address those, who are still in their prime, who are still young, especially not our children. But the prayer: “Teach us to number our days”, is general, and therefore must include both old and young.
For though it is true, that our children and young people may die, yet when we number our days, we reckon after the common standard, as the man of God himself indicated it, and we estimate a human life at seventy, or if we are very strong, at eighty years.
Moreover, to say by oneself: “I am already so and so old,” is no numbering of one’s days.
In that case no one reckons by days, but by years. Neither then does one count his years, but thinks at once of the age he has reached.
Numbering goes one by one.
So to number one’s days is a daily task. As at the door of the sheepfold the shepherd counts his sheep, adding one every time another sheep goes in, so he only numbers his days, who every morning or every evening when again a day is done, or a new day breaks, in his consciousness lets it count, and adds it to the number of his days of the past.
Therefore we wrote at the top of our meditation: “In the order of his course,” a word borrowed from the priestly ministration of Zachariah (Luke 1:8), and with whom the order of his course meant, that he had to minister certain days in the temple. and that on those days he had to render his appointed service, his fixed task of the day in that sanctuary.
When a new day came along, Zachariah was not free to steal that day for himself. He received that day from his God for a certain end, for an appointed task, for an indicated service; and it was only well, when at the end of that day the task of the order of his course was performed.
So the numbering of your days implies for every one of you who reads this, that you have an order of the course, that order must be appointed in your days, that as a something that is His, of which He must not be robbed, and which must not be squandered, you are to spend each new day in His service, and which, at its close, shall inquire of you before God’s eye whether it has brought to God what was required of it.
When in a family ten people live together, there must in that family ten times one day’s task be performed.
Something which does not exclude recreation. Rather the Lord’s day indicates, that this must also be. But for relaxation you should not take a single day, except as you are convinced, that God the Lord wills it, that He permits it, yea, that He has ordered that day for this purpose and not for your work.
What should be resisted, is selfwilfulness, self-voluntariness, thoughtlessness in the use of your days.
Resisted must be the false idea, that your days are your own, to do with as you will.
That you are free to dispose of them.
That if needs be you may waste and squander them, one after the other.
In such an interpretation of your life there lurks sin. It is overlooked, that it is God, Who day by day lengthens your life and maintains it.
It is reckoning without God.
It is lack of seriousness of life.
Taken on a large scale over against your God, in Whose service you stand, it is shameless daythievery.
In this there is an inside and an outside, for you have a life toward the world and a life in your heart. Thus twofuld service. In both services you have your day’s task, the order of your course, the service laid upon you on the part of God in His world.
With regard to the outside, this sin is less frequent with the poor than with the rich. He who must work for his bread, at a trade, in family-service, in an office, in an exacting position, of himself must go on and on. Each day has its own appointed activities, and as a rule these are brought to a finish.
The sin of wasting time and squandering of days in a lazy and easy way of doing nothing is therefore much more common with those, who do not have to work for their living, either because they themselves are rich, or because father or husband make liberal provision for the needs of their lives.
They who are poorer are not better therefore, and they who are richer worse. For experience teaches, that when a poor man becomes rich, he too, frequently squanders his day, and again, that when a rich man becomes poor, presently labors as steadily as any.
It should also be recognized, that it is far easier, when each morning at six or eight o’clock our work begins, than when one must ask himself: “How shall I spend this long day profitably?”
This however does not change in the least the seriousness of the matter. He who does not work for his living, must yet work each day for God. Not merely half an hour or a whole hour, but all day. Only it is laid upon him, with far more thought and carefulness to find the answer to the question: what the order of his course, what his daytask is.
Late rising, slow dressing, at leisure taking three, four meals, going out a while and coming home again, receiving a caller, glancing at a book, is no daytask and no lifetask; and especially the wife or woman may well ask herself seriously, what God wills today, and what God wills her to do tomorrow.
And therefore, as the new year begins, each one of us may well put ourselves the question seriously, whether he might not make a beginning with that serious numbering of his days; cut off that squandering of time; and break for good with that sinful, that thoughtless, that continuous daythievery.
But of course with this outside of life the matter is not ended. Life too has its inside, the side of the heart.
Let not therefore he, who has worked hard all day long for his bread, think, that therewith the order of his course, his daytask is ended. On the contrary, there are men and women, who their lifelong have toiled and labored every day, and who have yet not numbered their days, and have never applied their heart unto wisdom.
There is also an internal work, in the care of the heart, in ordering our life with our God, in watching the word of our tongue, in bridling our passions, in study of temperament and character, in the sharp investigation of our failings and passions, in the nursing of the flowers of the soul and of the fruits of the spirit.
And of this also Jesus says: There are twelve hours in the day. Let us walk in the light.
For what avails it, that you ripen for the world and have the respect of your fellowmen, when the field of your heart lies fallow, and little else grows there than weeds.
And therefore, as there is an order of your course each morning for your outward life, so let there also be an order of your course each morning for your inward life. And well-spent is your day and your life, only when that twofold task according to the order of your course given you of God has been fulfilled.
He who thus far has not numbered his days, let him take occasion from the changing of the year, to break with this thoughtlessness once and for all.
He Who demands this of you, is the Lord, Who Himself in that changing of the year sends out His call to you.
And if you say: I can not, then follow the example of the man of God, and pray that God will teach you.
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