Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.
So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.”
NL Daily Devotion for Thursday, June 17, 2021
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Human lifespan hasn’t really changed. Premature mortality has been drastically reduced in places with modern medical care, but if you were lucky enough to live through childhood in ancient times, you had a good shot of reaching into your eighties. And when you’re a kid, eighty years is forever.
I turn fifty this fall. Eighty isn’t all that far away anymore. So am I counting my days? Not in an obsessive oh-my-goodness-I’m-running-out-of-time! kind of way. I don’t think that’s what the psalmist is advocating. It’s more about whether I’m taking time to be aware of each day. To be grateful for all that God has given me. To take a deep breath of the lilac-scented air out on my walk yesterday, for example, and thank God for it. I do this imperfectly. And the reality is that no matter how much I do this, the time will still slip quickly away and at some point I’ll blink and realize I’m eighty. But hopefully I will be able to look back with joy and gratitude, knowing that I was fully present in the life God gifted to me.
How am I numbering my days?
![1 Kings 17:1-16 [17-24], God’s Care for the Widow](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/56b39b61ab48de92d991a40a/bf37035e-33d5-439f-a0d6-a68b02d0f1bc/24-11-03.jpg)
