"Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is." Psalm 39:4
What is time? To different people, it means different things. To a Wall Street stock trader, time is money: each hour of the day is to be filled with useful activity for making money, and to have a piece of key information on a stock even a minute before some other trader can mean thousands of dollars. To a doctor in an emergency room, time is an enemy: each second brings the critically wounded patient closer to death. To a physicist, time is a dimension: each year is a measurement of the developing cosmos, as much a dimension as length, width, and height. To an archaeologist, time is measured in strata, in layers of earth, and time is history: each meter down strips away a thousand years and tells a story of humanity. To a runner, time is a goal: each hundredth of a second on the clock is worth months of grueling training. To a philosopher, time is a human, psychic experience: each person senses the movement of events around him at a certain pace, like the flowing of a river.
But what should time be to a Christian? Here in Psalm 39, David meditates on time, specifically in relation to the brevity of human life. Death marks time for humans, and David's heart grew hot within him (verse 3) as he realized that his life is just a breath, or, as James puts it, “A mist that appears for a little while, and then vanishes” (James 4:14). Why did David's heart grow hot over this? Because we feel it shouldn't be so! Solomon wrote, “(God) has set eternity in the hearts of men,” (Ecclesiastes 3:11) meaning we naturally think about eternity (i.e. freedom from time's restrictions), but we cannot attain it because of Death. Death stands over our lives here on earth and is a reality for each Christian to accept. A heart of wisdom, says Moses, comes from a careful numbering of our days (Psalm 90:12).
"Perhaps for Christians, time is opportunity... opportunity to serve God in a way that will not be possible in heaven."
Therefore, for a Christian, time is unspeakably precious. Perhaps for Christians, time is opportunity... opportunity to serve God in a way that will not be possible in heaven. Each day brings its own unique circumstances, and they have been organized that way by God so that we may do the specific good works that can only be done that day (Ephesians 2:10). Therefore, Paul says “Be very careful, then, how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil.” (Eph. 5:15-16) What does “the days are evil” mean? Perhaps that we naturally tend to waste each day's opportunities, rather than make the most of them. There is a strong pull toward squandering the time... David cries out against this in Psalm 39, as does Moses in Psalm 90. Procrastination is the opposite of wisdom, for we cannot do today's good works tomorrow. As each day has enough trouble of its own (Matthew 6:34), so also each day is full in the mind of God with its own good deeds. There will be no “extra” time for me to do today's good works tomorrow... therefore, I must be vigilant to live each opportunity to the fullest. As Paul says in Galatians 6:10, “as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people...”
