Teach Us to Number Our Days

A man once calculated how many Saturdays he had left to live.

He bought two plastic containers. He placed 416 marbles in one. Every Saturday, he transferred a marble to the other side.

At first, the marbles fell and rolled noisily against the empty bottom. Then, gradually, the sound faded. Silence. The container filling up made no noise because it was already full. The one emptying out made no noise either, because there was almost nothing left.

That is life.

It doesn't warn you when it starts to speed up. It doesn't send you a signal when only a few marbles remain. Simply, one Saturday, there are none left to transfer.

The question is not whether this will happen to you. The question is: what are you doing with the marbles you have left?

"So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."
(Psalm 90:12)

That is Moses' prayer. It was not asked by a young man just starting out. It was asked by a man who had watched an entire generation die in the desert. Who had buried dreams and people. Who knew, with the full weight of experience, that days slip away without permission.

And yet, or perhaps for that very reason, he asked for wisdom to count them.

Life Has a Habit of Passing By

Moses did not sugarcoat things in Psalm 90.

He wrote with the honesty of a man who has seen much and no longer has time for detours:

"The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away."
(Psalm 90:10)

Seventy years. Eighty if you are blessed.

And of those years, a great portion is effort, weariness, and affliction. I don't say this to discourage you. I say it because Scripture says it, and because a life well lived begins with seeing reality as it truly is, not as we wish it were.

Moses uses several images to describe the brevity of life. Each one strikes differently:

Like grass that sprouts in the morning and by evening has already withered.
Like a dream that vanishes upon waking.
Like a sigh, barely whispered, already gone before you finish hearing it.
Like mist, appearing for a moment and then dissolving.

James echoes this centuries later:

"For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away."
(James 4:14)

Vapor.

Not stone. Not steel. Not wood.

Vapor.

The Mistake of the Rich Fool

Jesus told the story of a man who had everything figured out.

His land produced so much that he had nowhere to store the harvest. His problem was not scarcity, but abundance. And instead of asking God what to do with that plenty, he spoke to himself:

"This is what I will do: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.'"
(Luke 12:18-19)

What was his sin? He was not condemned for being rich. Being rich is not a sin.

His sin was that he calculated the future without including God in the calculation. He spoke of "my crops," "my goods," "my soul," "my barns." Everything was his. Everything revolved around him. And in that world built to his own measure, there was no room for eternity.

That very night, God required his soul.

What he had accumulated was left for others. And he departed with nothing.

"So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
(Luke 12:21)

There are two kinds of wealth. The kind that stays here when you go. And the kind that goes with you when you depart.

The fool accumulated the first kind and neglected the second.

But Mercy Has No Expiration Date

I could dwell on brevity, on dust, on vapor. But Moses did not stay there.

In the very midst of the same psalm that speaks of how short life is, there is a turn that changes everything:

"But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him."
(Psalm 103:17)

The life of man is like grass. It blooms and it perishes.

But the mercy of God has no such limitation.

While everything human has an expiration date — health, money, barns, plans — the mercy of God does not expire. It does not wither at evening. It does not vanish with the wind.

Time runs out. God does not.

And that is the anchor.

What It Means to Number Our Days

Let us return to Moses' prayer: "Teach us to number our days."

Numbering our days is not living obsessed with death. It is not anxiety dressed up as spirituality.

Numbering our days is living with conscious purpose. It is asking yourself each morning: Am I being rich toward God today? Am I transferring marbles into the eternal, or only into the temporary?

There are lessons that life has been teaching me along the way:

That God is always right. Always, even when it doesn't seem like it.
That the best path is the road of humility and service.
That pain, over time, becomes a teacher.
That valleys, deserts, and trials are not interruptions to God's plan — they are part of the plan.
That the more I desire to be used by God, the more He must first work in me.

These things are not learned in a classroom.

They are learned in life. In diagnoses that arrive without warning. In losses you never asked for. In the silences of God that, in the end, turn out to be His deepest answers.

One Marble at a Time

I don't know how many marbles you have left.

I don't know how many I have left either.

But I know this: every day God gives us is an opportunity to be rich toward Him. To invest in what does not wither. To love the people He has placed in our lives. To serve with what we have while we still have it.

The grass blooms. And yes, it withers.

But while it blooms, it can give shade, it can give color, it can point toward something greater than itself.

That is the life Moses asked to know how to live.

That is the life the rich fool never found.

That is the life that God, in His mercy, is still offering us today.

Do not waste the marbles you have left.

"So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."
(Psalm 90:12)

Make this prayer your own today. Ask God to teach you to live with your eyes fixed on eternity, without losing sight of the present moment. May every day count. May every relationship matter. And when your last Saturday comes, may you have been — truly — rich toward God.

Has this article helped you? Share it with someone who needs it today.