Numbering Our Days

Numbering Our Days

So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.
Psalm 90:12

Numbering my days is a habitual preoccupation with me now. How much longer do I have? In this life As that number shrinks, the more I am conscious of the need to apply my heart to wisdom. Or as the King James Version has it, “to get a heart of wisdom.”
Actuarial charts supposedly help with the numbering part of the task. They factor in various health risks, one’s gender, how long your own parents lived. I don’t smoke, am not overweight, eat a healthful diet and exercise as much as I can. My parents lived into their eighties. If I follow their pattern, I reckon I will too.
So should I count on another twenty years? Do I want another twenty years? Not particularly, considering that my mother lived the last decade of her life in the throes of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Those years were a trial to our family and a nightmare for her.
Moreover, my own bodily afflictions, minor though they are compared to hers, on some days make me eager to shuffle off the miseries of this mortal coil.. My life has taken twists and turns that sometimes led to dead-ends, but that’s what lives do.. No one I know has had the happily-ever-after life we all think we want. Most mornings I wake up grateful for where my life has landed. In fact, I really have nothing more to ask of life. Nor would I have the energy to undertake more anyway.
When I apply my heart to wisdom, I confront truths not based on lengthening my days. . First of all, actuarial charts deal only with average life spans, not individuals. I might die sitting here at my computer at any moment. For none of us really know the full number of our days. We can only number them day by day, one at a time. Pondering one’s end may be wisdom; trying to predict one’s end is not. At best, such an attempt is pointless. At worst, it leads to fear or disappointment.
So what is the point of numbering my days? How does it get me a heart of wisdom?
Psalm 90 puts the average life span at seventy – which would mean three more years for me – “or by reason of strength, four score.” In that case, I would have another thirteen years.
I try that on to see how it feels. How would I live if I knew I had three more years? How would it differ from living thirteen more? Would I blow my shrinking retirement account in three years on big travel plans? But travel isn’t as comfortable as it used to be. And like many old people, I don’t like being separated from my own bed for long. Would I pay for my graduating granddaughter’s first year in college? Or would I buy my husband the Jaguar he’s always wanted?
If the money had to be spread over thirteen years, however, I’d probably just choose a new fence for my chicken yard and dole out the rest in cost-of-living increases.
Linking longevity to my financial resources isn’t simple materialism. If one‘s heart lies where one’s treasure is, following the money can show me what I truly value. Finding the map to where my treasure lies buried – that’s what I call wisdom.