Taking Stock

 

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom…May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.”

—Psalm 90:12, 17

She was about my age at the time, almost fifty, and energetic, efficient, extremely competent. Now she was gone, dying all too quickly of a stroke.

Fran Jones was hired as our school system’s assistant superintendent, but she had served for the past school year as my school’s interim principal. We had often laughed together as we planned events for the school. She had won the hearts of all who worked with her, and said this was one of the happiest years of her career.

She had just begun a second year as an interim principal, this time at the Middle School, for what she hoped would be a short-term assignment. After a staff meeting, she fell ill and never recovered. She died several days later.

I guess that everybody has a clarifying moment like this, a time to reflect on his or her own life. This period in my life allowed Psalm 90 to take on new meaning. I wanted to make a difference, live for Christ as I never had before, to affect lives for the Kingdom. Fran’s death had made me more eager than ever to make certain I did not waste whatever time I may have left in my life.

Moses wrote this 90th Psalm. I wonder at what time in his life he wrote it: when he cared for sheep in the desert; or after the Lord had called him to lead His people out of Israel; or toward the end of Moses’ life, as he struggled with the nation in the wilderness?

Maybe Moses, too, saw someone important to him, vital, influential, and dying. Maybe he, too, wanted more than ever to be God’s servant with a significant ministry to His people.

If God has you pray the kind of prayer contained in Psalm 90, you can be sure that He has blessing ahead for you!