On "Spending" Time
Rev Dr Mark Porizky
10/21/07
Psalm 90
Now that Joshua is driving and we are sharing a car, I’ll sometimes get
into the car and be bombarded by music from the radio station he’s left the
radio tuned to. Usually I switch it
fast. But a few weeks ago, I
happened to catch a song on the radio called "100 Years," by a music
group named Five for Fighting.
The tune caught my attention first, then the haunting words. The premise
of the song is that if you've only got 100 years to live, then 15 is a great age
to be because you've got plenty of time." Twenty-two isn't bad either, as
you're just crossing the threshold into grown-up pursuits. At 33 it feels like
things are coming together—you have people in your life and work to do. But at
45 you're nearing the halfway mark, and time is slipping away. At 67 the sun is
falling toward the horizon, and before you know it, you're 99, wondering where
the time went. I’ll play the song
for you at the end of the sermon. The
words are in your bulletin.
When I heard that song, it brought to mind another song, a much older
one. I don't mean from the sixties or seventies. I'm talking about the songs
that are in the Bible, specifically Psalm 90. The Psalms were songs sung by
God's people in worship. Psalm 90 is
one of the oldest.
This morning I’ll begin a two part series on stewardship.
Yes, next week I’ll talk about the stewardship of finances.
But today I want to talk about how we “spend” our days, the
stewardship of time. As age 45
nears, I’m discovering more and more that if we want our lives to count, we
have to number our days.
Let's take a closer look at Psalm 90 and see what that means.
Lord,
you have been our dwelling-place*
in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
You turn us*
back to dust,
and say, ‘Turn back, you mortals.’
For a thousand years in your sight
are like yesterday when it is past,
or like a watch in the night.
You sweep them away; they are like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning;
in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
in the evening it fades and withers.
For we are consumed by your anger;
by your wrath we are overwhelmed.
You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your countenance.
For all our days pass away under your wrath;
our years come to an end*
like a sigh.
The days of our life are seventy years,
or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;
even then their span*
is only toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
Who considers the power of your anger?
Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due to you.
So teach us to count our days
that we may gain a wise heart.
Turn, O Lord! How long?
Have compassion on your servants!
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.
Let your work be manifest to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us,
and prosper for us the work of our hands—
O prosper the work of our hands!
In this Psalm, the author clearly sees two realities: First, the author sees the eternity of God.
To make that point, the songwriter says, verse 4, "For a thousand
years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the
night." Now, that verse is not some cipher for decoding the Book of
Revelation; it's simply a metaphor, a feeble attempt with human words to explain
that God is not affected by the passing of time.
The second thing the author sees is the frailty of humanity, the brevity
of human life. "You turn us back to dust," he sings, reminding us that
these bodies that we work so hard to take care of, to keep healthy, to make more
attractive, will one day return to the Earth and be turned to dust. We're like
people living on a flood plain, verse 5 tells us, when the waters rise we're
swept away while sleeping in our beds. We're like grass, springing up bright and
green after a midsummer night's rain, only to wither and die under the afternoon
sun.
So how do we resolve this tension between the eternality of God and the
frailty of human life? We sense that we were made for something more than this
life. God has set eternity in our hearts. We want to do something that will
last. Yet time so quickly catches up with us, and most of what we accomplish in
this life turns to dust along with these bodies we inhabit.
So, how can we make sure our lives will count, not only in this life, but
beyond?
The answer, says the songwriter, is to number our days—to count them,
to value them. Verse 12 is the turning point in the psalm, where the song shifts
from lament to hope. "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain
a heart of wisdom." Everybody counts something. Wise people count the
things that really matter.
Psalm 90 warns us not to go through life counting the wrong things. If
you want your life to count for something, number your days. Count the days and
hours and minutes; value them, make the most of them, and measure your life by
what you do with them. It seems to me that three things happen when we number
our days.
First, when we number our days, we realize how few of them we really have.
Most people live like they have an unlimited number of days. We expect to
live long lives, and figure we have so many days we can't even count them all.
But the songwriter reminds us that we have a limited number of days, 70 or 80
years by his reckoning. That may sound like a lot, especially when you're only
15. But when you do the math, when you actually number the days, you find out
you have something like 29,200 days if you live to be 80. When you put it that
way, it's not that many. 30,000, though many here have already passed that
number, is considered a long life.
But if our days were dollars, how long does it take to spend $30,000?
That's a nice car, or a year of college. $30,000 won't get you a down payment on
a house around here. $30,000 isn't a lot of money. And it's not a lot of time,
either. When you number you're days, you realize how few you really have.
Psalm 90 reminds us that, sooner or later, we're all going to die. And
most of the time, it comes sooner than we'd like. We don't like to face that
reality, but until we do, we'll never know how to make our lives count. One
commentator paraphrases verse 12 this way: "Teach us to remember that we
must die, in order that we might know how to live."
The second thing that happens when we number our days is that we spend
them more wisely.
I came across a study from some years ago of how typical Americans spend
their time. The average American adult spends about seven-and-a-half hours a day
sleeping, three-and-a-half hours a day working, two hours a day watching TV,
one-and-a-half hours doing housework, one hour eating, half-an-hour on
recreation, half-an-hour washing and grooming, and about nine minutes thinking.
That study was done about ten years ago, before the Internet and video games had
become so popular, so who knows what it would reveal now. Joshua tells me that
it’s not unusual for a kid to spend seven, eight, or even 24 hours straight
playing a video game, especially the new game—Halo 3.
If you were to number your days, your hours, and your minutes, what would
it reveal about the way you're spending them? After sleeping and work, would TV
be third on the list? You really
don't know till you sit down and do the numbers, do you?
We want to be a saints, but we also want to feel every sensation
experienced by sinners; we want to be innocent and pure, but we also want to be
experienced and taste all of life; we want to serve the poor and have a simple
lifestyle, but we also want all the comforts of the rich; we want to have the
depth afforded by solitude, but we also do not want to miss anything; we want to
pray, but we also want to watch television, read, talk to friends, and go out.
To me it is no surprise that life is often a trying enterprise, and that
we are often tired and pathologically overextended.
That's why it's so important to number your days and hours, so you
understand how many you have to work with, so you can spend them wisely.
The third thing that happens when you number your days is you're able to
offer them to God and ask him to bless them. When we spend our days without
really thinking about them, we miss the opportunity to ask God's blessing on
them, to consider his purposes for that hour or day or year. But when we number
our days, then one by one we are able to offer them up to God, and seek his
direction and blessing. And when we do that, when we offer our days to God one
by one, then our days begin to add up to something, something that will stand
for eternity.
The psalm ends on an upbeat note. Having faced the reality of death, and
having accurately reckoned the number of days and determined to spend them
wisely, the songwriter invites God's blessing on the days to come. Verse 14:
"Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast
love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days."
The songwriter is a realist; he's not kidding himself or us about how
difficult life can be sometimes. But when we number our days and spend them
wisely, then God is able to bless them, and they count for something. Not only
for the years of our lives, but for all eternity.
Tim Sanders—former chief solutions officer at Yahoo! and author of Love
Is the Killer App—shares the following thought about how he spends time:
Take your life and all the things that you
think are important, and put them in one of three categories. These three
categories are represented by three items: glass, metal, and rubber.
The things that are made of rubber, when you
drop them, will bounce back. Nothing really happens when these kinds of things
get dropped. So, for instance (and I enjoy sporting events, so don't take me
wrong here), if I miss a Seahawks' game, my life will bounce along real fine. It
doesn't change anything and nothing is lost—my missing a game or a season of
football will not alter my marriage or my spiritual life. I can take 'em or
leave 'em.
Things that are made of metal, when they get
dropped, create a lot of noise. But you can recover from the drop. You miss a
meeting at work, you can get the cliff notes. Or if you forget to balance your
checkbook and lose track of how much you have in your account, and the bank
notifies you that you have been spending more than you have—that's going to
create a little bit of noise in your life, but you can recover from it.
Then there are things made of glass. And when
you drop one of these, it will shatter into pieces and never be the same. Even
though you can piece it back together, it will still be missing some pieces. It
certainly won't look the same, and I doubt that you could actually fill it up
with water, because the consequences of it be being broken will forever affect
how it's used.
The thing is, you're the only person who knows
what those things are that you can't afford to drop. More than likely, they have
a lot to do with your relationships. Your God, Your marriage, your family, and
your friends.
The first stewardship reality is this:
if you want your life to count, you have to number your days.
I ask you to pray silently as you listen to “100 Years.”
(SONG)
St.
Andrew Presbyterian Church, Groton
,
Web Site: WWW.SAPC-CT.ORG
Office Email: OFFICE@SAPC-CT.ORG
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