Remembering Last Year

Jen Wilkin:

“Tomorrow, if the Lord wills.”

We live differently when we regard the future as a place we will go “if the Lord wills.” God does not owe me the seventy or eighty years of which Moses speaks in Psalm 90. Every year he gives is a gift, gracious and undeserved. Thanks be to God, not just for the years he has preserved me but for the years he has ordained for me, perfect in number and known only to him. 

How aware are you that your days are numbered? How willing are you to ask the Lord to teach you this precious truth? In the closing lines of Psalm 90, Moses makes one last remarkable request of God. He asks not once, but twice that our seventy or eighty years would have an impact that outlives their span.

 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, 

and establish the work of our hands upon us;

 yes, establish the work of our hands!

 Here is a remarkable truth: God is able to bring eternal results from our time-bound efforts. This is what Jesus intimates when he tells us to store up treasure in heaven rather than on earth. When we invest our time in what has eternal significance, we store up treasure in heaven. This side of heaven, the only investments with eternal significance are people. “Living this day well”means prioritizing relationships over material gain. We cannot take our stuff with us when we die, but, Lord willing, we may feed the hungry and clothe the needy in such a way that an eternal result is rendered. We may speak words that, by the favor of the Lord, transform into the very words of life. This is the calling of the missionary, the magnate, and the mother of small children: spend your time to impact people for eternity.

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Reading this made me think back to October last year. It was a strange, difficult time. After the Independence Referendum, war broke out and we never knew if and when it would reach our city. Various people evacuated, we very much did not want to leave but after a night when we were woken by sustained gunfire (we discovered in the end it was celebratory, but when you're woken from deep sleep with that incredible noise around you, I was properly scared), we realised  maybe we needed to be more ready physically and mentally to leave.

So what has all this got to do with numbering our days and saying "if the Lord wills"? Well I think the overriding feeling at that time which I hated was one of total uncertainty. We wondered what it was God was trying to teach us? One thing became very  clear. We say "we don't know what tomorrow will hold" etc and we believe James 4.13-16 (you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.' As it is you boast in your arrogant schemes.) But actually, we think we do know what tomorrow will hold, and probably even the next day, week or even month. We love making plans and filling our diaries. We think we're in control. Well back in October we realised we really, really didn't know what was going to happen and weren't in control. We would tell people we might see them that evening, but then again, maybe we wouldn't be here then. We didn't know whether to buy a big bag of pasta or just a smaller one so as not to waste money (sounds silly,  but the quandary was constantly on our minds). One moment we thought we'd be going, the rest, everything just felt so very normal that the idea of going felt crazy. 

We saw that we don't know a thing, that verses we assent to (like Give us our daily bread), we don't really believe in our hearts, because maybe we felt we hadn't had to- (though maybe we would if we'd known poverty and hunger). Our kind Father was telling us to look to him, rely on him. He was showing us that only he was our security.

He was also showing us to use the time we had well. To make the most of every opportunity he gave us and invest our time in what has eternal significance.

 Now it's March, things feel a whole lot more stable and it's easy to step into those bad old ways again. So I'm thankful for this reminder to say "Tomorrow, if the Lord wills".