By Pr. Derrick Sekamalira
Image: Pr. Derrick Sekamalira
It was December 2023, just a few days before Christmas, when I received a call I will never forget—from someone I had never met. He was calling about a friend of mine. I had just seen this friend days earlier. Let me tell you about him—his name was Ronald. He was from Rwebisengo, near the Congo border. A hardworking man. He was married to a woman from Ethiopia whom he had met in the Middle East. They had two young boys.
He had come to Christ while working in the Middle East. He loved Jesus. He was eager—eager—to join our church.
Then this stranger on the phone told me something I could hardly believe.
He said Ronald had died. I thought it was a scam. But it wasn’t.
My friend had been killed in a tragic accident. I still remember standing in the morgue, looking at his body…and wondering what I could say to his young boys.
That moment forced me to face something we often try to avoid:
Life is far more fragile—and far more fleeting—than we think.
And that is exactly what Psalm 90 confronts us with.
Because life is fleeting, we must ask God to teach us to number our days aright.
Have a look with me at verse 12:
12 So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
This is the prayer at the heart of the Psalm.
We will see three realities that lead us to ask for wisdom, and the prayer itself.
This is the theme of our conference. It is a great one as we think about faith and work because we cannot work well, in a way that pleases our God, without truly grappling with our mortality.
It is a prayer because we don’t naturally number our days. We instead live as if we shall live forever in this world, as if our days were not numbered, so we need God to help us.
Moses does not start with himself, but starts with God.
Number our Days Alright: Three Realities that lead us to pray for Wisdom in a Fleeting Life.
Moses begins this sobering Psalm with the Good News.
- The eternal God is our dwelling place (vs. 1-2)
Moses calls God “Lord, the sovereign one.” He has been their dwelling place. 90:1 “Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.” … “from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” Though God’s people moved without a home, God was their dwelling place.
This puts the brevity of our lives in perspective. As those whose days are fleeting, we must rest in the immortal, immovable, and eternal God.
The amazing reality is that he who is eternal is also one who can be our dwelling place.
It means that God is our home in this present world. The one who is our true joy and hope in an uncertain world. We are sojourners, but in God we can find a true place to belong. To make God our dwelling place means that this world doesn’t define us. All our homes here are temporary, but God is our permanent home.
People like to boast or take pride in their homes, whether it is their home village, their parents’ home, their city of upbringing, or their home country. For Moses, he looked to God as his home, his place of safety and refuge.
But how can we claim God as our dwelling place?
It is through Christ Jesus. We were separated from God. We had no hope and no God in the world (Ephesians 2:12). But God, because of His great love with which he loved us, made us alive together with Christ.
God must come first before we can consider ourselves. God ought to be the starting place of our worldview, the one by whom makes sense of everything… our work, our relationships, our joys, our sorrows, our hopes, and our dreams.
Because God is the eternal one, we need to live the truth that things in this world are not eternal. Your work is not eternal. Your home, your car, your marriage, and your achievements at work are not eternal. So, do not idolise your work.
We number our days rightly by treasuring the eternal God as our dwelling place. When we value God above our work, promotions, or the pursuit of wealth, we are well on our way to living with true wisdom.
Paul in Ephesians 2:6 tells us of the believer’s residence spiritually,
“and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”
We are in Christ. God is our dwelling place. We have a new address. We have a new home. We have a new identity.
Renowned Old Testament scholar, now with the Lord, Alec Motyer, wrote:
“You have a permanent address; make sure you are living there.”
Imagine a person having a beautiful house, but choosing to sleep rough on the streets.
This changes how we work.What is most important about the Christian is not their work, it is their being in Christ, our new address.
We don’t work to find ourselves; we don’t work to make a name for ourselves; we don’t work to be recognized; we don’t work to secure our lives. Rather, we work as children of the sovereign One who sends us to proclaim His kingdom through our work. We go as His ambassadors, secure in His eternal abiding love for us in Christ.
Christian, do your work as one who is showing off God’s new creation in you that has dawned in this broken world, with integrity, love, care, compassion, excellence, and joy, OR do you work only as a means of survival or advancing your own ambitions?
Do you look to your work for your identity? Are you seeking validation for your achievements at work? Will you find your home in God, hidden in Christ?
We all struggle with that in some way. But we must keep preaching the truth to our feeble hearts. Derrick, or insert your name, my work doesn’t define my identity. I’m secure in my residence in Christ. I’m loved. I’m provided for. I have my Good Shepherd. I have a glorious, secure, and brilliant future with Jesus to look forward to. So, my life at work ought to display that I’m already part of the new creation.
Even when we don’t have work, we MUST remember that we are Christ’s.
Because the eternal God is our dwelling place, we must ponder our eternal future with Him. God’s plan from the beginning has been to live with His people in His place for eternity.
In Christ, God is making all things new – he’s already bringing forth a new creation, starting with His people the church, and he will bring about a new world at Christ’s coming.
Therefore, we must live with eternity in view. This world, this place, your work, my work, are all temporary. But through Christ, the day is coming when we shall dwell with God who is our dwelling place.
Listen to Rev 21:3-4
“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Application:
Our days on earth are numbered and are few, this psalm teaches. Yet we have an outstanding hope of our future home with God forever.
This reality must change how we live and certainly how we work. We don’t live for this world. We must not work like those whose minds are set on this world with the attitude, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” They can do anything to climb up the corporate ladder. They may sacrifice their spiritual well-being for the paycheck.
But our citizenship is in heaven, as the apostle Paul reminds believers in Philippians 3:20.
Therefore, we shouldn’t just work merely for our comfort but to serve God by serving people, being generous with our money, and using our time to share the gospel.
How are you aligning your work goals with God’s kingdom and redemptive purposes?
This is because this world is not our home. The eternal God is our dwelling place both now and for eternity.
Christian, this world is not your home; God is. His new heavens and earth are. So set your mind on it.
Fight the insidious belief that gaining more material things is the goal of work. Repent from false teachings that promise you heaven on earth!
But use your work or the season when you lack it to focus on how you can help people be part of an eternity with God. Work each day knowing that you serve the one who is already your dwelling place through Christ.
The second reality that leads us to pray for wisdom in a fleeting life is:
- Human life is brief and fragile vs 3-6
Few things are harder for us to accept than how brief our lives are. We try our best to delay death and to hide it as far away as possible. We are uncomfortable talking about it. We have even come up with interpretations of Scripture that make us believe that we must die very old if we have faith.
But look at what Moses wrote:
3 You return man to dust
and say, “Return, O children of man!”[b]
4 For a thousand years in your sight
are but as yesterday when it is past,
or as a watch in the night.
6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
in the evening it fades and withers.”
He says that the eternal God returns man to dust. This echoes Genesis 3:19, “Till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
We see the contrast between us who return to the dust and the God to whom a thousand years are like one day or a watch in the night.
Humanity’s death is inevitable. We are helpless before death; God sweeps us away as if like with a flood. Like a dream, life ends quickly. We all probably know someone who passed away unexpectedly like my friend Ronald.
As grass grows up and flourishes but also fades and withers fast, so is life. Grass grows, flourishes, and then quickly withers—that is what life is like. Your life has its prime, but it is short and passing.
We moved to a new house a few months ago. When we first looked at it, the grass looked amazing. But when we moved in, the grass that had had a vibrant green color was almost dead and looked brown. It is still struggling, and it will die.
We need God to help us number our days aright and have a heart of wisdom, because life is fragile and brief.
When I was in secondary school, I had the privilege of serving on my school’s scripture union leadership team, where I would preach sometimes. Our patron, who was a teacher and attended a certain church that influenced that shaped his theology about death, would also teach in our lunch hour meetings. There were many students. He taught that if one had faith, they would not die young but would live a long life. To die young was considered being cursed. He would ‘prophesy,’ “No one will die in your family”.”
One day we had news that his younger brother had died. I wondered how my fellow students would process that news in light of the man’s preaching.
We have many preachers and churches directly or indirectly holding to such views. We don’t like this reality.
He and his church are an example of people who deny this reality of the brevity of life. We may not do so out loud, but we might do by how we live.
Think about how we assume that we shall live long or that we can put off living wisely to a much later time in our days, maybe when we are older. Or when we say after this job, then I will start living in light of my Christian convictions’. Later, we may say, I will be more open about my faith at work. How do you know that you will have another chance?
Maybe your current situation might be your last before God takes you? 5 “You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream,”
James, similarly, speaks, asking those who boasted about their business plans, how they would go to a city and do business. Like we love to speak about our future ambitions for work or for starting new business ventures.
James 4:14 Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”
Do you share God’s assessment of your life?
Margaret Baxter, wife to Pastor Richard Baxter, was known to keep a skull on her nightstand to remind her of the brevity of life. You may not like the names people might call you if you carried a skull in your office, but we all need reminders of our mortality because we are easily distracted by the world.
Richard Baxter, who was often afflicted by sicknesses, once wrote:
“Weakness and pain helped me to study how to die; that set me on studying how to live.” Richard Baxter
We must study how to die well in view of the brevity of our lives so we can live well. This is not ‘negativity.”
You don’t need to ‘cancel’ my preaching. This is God’s word to you!
Are you living with an awareness of the shortness of your life? Consider how this reality out to change how you live and work?
It was CT Stud, a famous British Cricketer from England who became a missionary to China, India and Africa who wrote in his poem: “Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.”
Tomorrow is not promised. We must work heartily because we will never have another day like today to serve our Lord. We only get one shot at living for Christ in this broken world. How differently must you live and work knowing that you only get one chance to please your Father and Redeemer in this world?
Remember God has you where you are for a reason. Who are the people God has put before you to love, to share the gospel with, to give generously, and to build up in Christ? Likely these are the people at your workplace, your church, and your friend group.
Don’t waste your time at work. You will number your days alright by living with an awareness of the fragility and brevity of your life.
The third reality that leads us to ask God to number our days alright is:
- Our brevity is due to God’s wrath against sin (vs. 7-11).
Our brevity is not by chance. Life didn’t just happen by chance. There is a creator who made us for a purpose. He didn’t make us to die. But why do we die?
The answer we find in our text is we die because of God’s wrath—His anger.
7 For we are brought to an end by your anger;
by your wrath we are dismayed.
8 You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your presence.
9 For all our days pass away under your wrath;
we bring our years to an end like a sigh.
10 The years of our life are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span[c] is but toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
11 Who considers the power of your anger,
and your wrath according to the fear of you?
Our death was part of the curse due to our rebellion as we find in Genesis 3.
God’s wrath revealed in our death should point us to his coming wrath that will be revealed on the last day when he will cast unbelievers in the eternal lake of fire.
Discounting God’s wrath is sure fire way to live unwisely. When we do, we live seeking immortality by our own means whether through legacy, technologies like AI, and false theologies. Because the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, we need to consider how knowing God’s wrath ought to cause us to fear Him.
Verse 11 “Who considers the power of your anger,
and your wrath according to the fear of you?”
The NIV puts this verse like this: “If only we knew the power of your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.”
He invites us to ponder the power of God’s anger. Have we stopped to consider it. And that His wrath is as great as the fear He is due.
Then the author continues:
12 So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.”
But we don’t like to think about God’s wrath. Death is an opportunity to consider God’s wrath against sin.
This is what Ecclesiastes 7:2 teaches when the preacher writes: “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart.” NIV
We ought to surrender to our fate and recognize what we deserve because of sin is wrath. Not understanding this means we can’t understand the gospel, the solution to our sin and death!
Alec Motyer wrote:
“People who know themselves to be under wrath have no other sheltering place than the God whose wrath they have provoked – and he is there to welcome them in!”
Knowing that our sins are the reasons we suffer and die will make us less inclined to sin against God. It will help us see the sinfulness of sin. It will teach us to hate the acceptable sins of our country, such as bribery, nepotism, sexual immorality, and materialism.
Accepting that we are naturally under God’s wrath is the first place we need to get to if we are to flee to the grace of God in Christ Jesus. This is the beginning of having a heart of wisdom, embracing Jesus Christ, who is the wisdom of God.
This grace shown to us at the cross is where we are sheltered from God’s wrath because Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath on our behalf on the cross, died and was raised on the third day, having satisfied the wrath of God, and is now seated at God’s right hand. And like Jesus, those of us who believe are promised that we shall conquer death because Christ will rise us up on the last day. By grace, we are sheltered from God’s wrath through Christ alone.
Have you ever found your shelter from God’s wrath in the death of Jesus for your sins? Or perhaps you’re hiding in the little hut of your good works? Imagine trying to survive a tsunami or a tornado by running to a hut made of papyrus? That is what hoping in your good works to escape God’s wrath against your sin is like.
Reflecting on God’s wrath should remind us that there is a judgment to come. We all will soon stand before the judgement seat of Christ. If saved, we are not to be sentenced to hell or heaven, but rather for God to assess the works we have done in the body. And since we spend so much time at our workplaces, God will evaluate our faithfulness at work.
So, we need to ask for God’s help to consider how brief our days are, to number them by living with the knowledge that our days are short and that each day that is gone shall never be returned.
We need to consider the wrath of God and His coming judgement, so we can number our days alright and have a heart of wisdom.
How is living wisely in a fleeting life possible? What must we do?
- We must look to God, who satisfies us with His steadfast love.
Moses prays: “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”
How can fleeting humanity live with wisdom? It is possible by looking to God, who satisfies us with His steadfast love and establishes our work.
This prayer of Moses is a plea to God that His people may experience the joy of knowing His covenant love. A call for God to return to his people. The contrast between God returning us to dust as the judgment brought upon our sin verse 3, and God returning to us with favour in verse 13.
It may appear that numbering our days would only cause one to live in constant sorrow as they become aware of the brevity of life.
Yet the Psalmist says that because of the grace of God revealed in his steadfast love, we can be satisfied verse 14 and thereby enabled to rejoice and be glad all our days.
14 “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.”
Let your work be shown to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
17 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!”
The answer to living well and wisely is found in being satisfied with God’s deep-hearted commitment to love His people. This love is shown clearly through the death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, who died for us while we were still sinners. This love is the only thing that can truly satisfy the soul.
The world lies to us by telling us that we can be satisfied if we achieve success in work, earn a certain figure, gain recognition, or land that prestigious job. But all those things aren’t the answer. They may bring happiness, but it is short-lived.
Our propensity is to look for things to fill the void that can only be satisfied by relishing the never-dying love of God revealed in Jesus Christ.
So, friends, do not look for satisfaction in your work. Do not look for joy in the things you can build, but savor the abundant goodness of God found in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In your work, practice a holy dissatisfaction with this world as you face various challenges. As you face the progressive breakdown of your body as you age, let’s practice this holy dissatisfaction. As you embrace the brevity of your life and that of your loved ones, it is an opportunity to be dissatisfied with what the world offers and look toward eternity with the everlasting God.
But does this mean that our work doesn’t matter?
The answer is that our work gains eternal meaning and purpose as we focus on God’s unbreakable love for us in Christ. The irony is that the more we focus on God’s work or what God has done in history to redeem his people, the more our work becomes meaningful, and therefore, we can have a heart of wisdom while we work.
Verses 16 Let your work be shown to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
17 Let the favor[d] of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!
Moses prays first that God shows his work to him and God’s covenant community.
Because of God’s steadfast love to us who trust in Christ, God has ensured that our work for Him and in Him will not be in vain.
1 Cor 15:58 “ Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, and always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.”
Because of the resurrection, whatever we do now for Christ, through our 9-5 or side hustles, entrepreneurial ventures, service in our local churches, or volunteering somewhere, can all be done for Christ.
So, recognize that your work is not a waste of time because of the redemptive work of Christ. God is using it for His eternal purposes, as we proclaim the gospel to the lost and bear witness to God’s love in how we do our work.
So may we join Moses in the prayer, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”
Amen
Derrick is the lead pastor at Cross Fellowship Church, Kansanga
