Neville Turley

“Teach us how short our life is, so that we may become wise.”  Psalm 90:12 (GNT)

Numbers can be deceiving. A million rands does not seem to be a large figure in terms of our economy. However, it pales into insignificance when one reads the works of theoretical physicists.

In his book “Brief answers to the big questions” Stephen Hawkins writes: “There is fossil evidence that there was some form of life on earth three and a half billion years ago.  This may have been only five hundred million years after the earth became stable and cool enough for life to develop.”

We should not lose sight of the fact that when we talk of a million in terms of years, not rands, it is a gigantic number. If we live to be a hundred years, then we will have lived for only 36 525 days just a minor fraction of a million. Most of us will not live that long. The Psalmist wrote: “Seventy years is all we have — eighty years, if we are strong; yet all they bring us is trouble and sorrow; life is soon over, and we are gone.” Psalm 90:10 (GNT)

Put in the Biblical context only some 730 000 days have passed since angels heralded the birth of our Lord Jesus in Bethlehem.

What is important is not how long we live but how we manage our time on earth. Our time here is a precious gift from a loving God to be used in his service. We do not know how long we will live. What we do know is that when we stand on the brink of eternity where time does not exist, we will be judged on how we lived our life to God’s glory. 

It is an awesome responsibility but, praise God, the Holy Spirit is with you and me to guide us each step along our way.

Prayer:  Heavenly Father, to you be all honour, praise and glory. May your Holy Spirit teach us how best to use our time effectively to enrich our relationship with you. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen