Teach Us to Number Our Days

CBN.com When a single marble fell out of the pocket of my jacket, I remembered where I had gotten it. Walt had given me that marble from his pocket as we chatted after church. Sometimes he brought them to church to give to the children.

“This was last week,” he said. “It was a pretty good week.”

Then he explained what he meant. Though he is happy and healthy, he had estimated (I supposed using actuarial tables) how many more weeks he could expect to live and put a marble for each week into a jar. Every Sunda,y he removed a marble from the jar and watched the pile shrink. It encouraged him to realize the importance of each day; sort of his version of "It's a Wonderful Life."

Talk about a time management concept! We have an opportunity to do important things that need to be done. But that time is limited. For Christians, our jar of marbles stands for the life that God has put within us.

The psalmist tells us,

“Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are; help us to spend them as we should” (Psalm 90:12, TLB).

Walt's approach does not appeal to me; seems kind of grim, actually. But Walt's idea makes a good point: If we stop to think about it, as we do it very seldom, we can look at Walt's visual approach of our dwindling lives in a positive way, a cozy reminder that we have a bunch of wonderful marbles to spend in whatever way we wish.

Therefore, the best thing to do is to ask God to do for us the same two things the psalmist prayed:
• Teach us to number our days
• Help us to spend them as we should

Umm… maybe a jar of marbles would be a good idea. Then again, maybe not.

Sandra Felton, the "Organizer Lady", is the founder of Messies Anonymous and author of several books on the topic of getting your home organized. To find out more about Sandra, visit her Web site www.messies.com.