Our Days Are Numbered

 About five years ago I began to literally number my days.  A couple of years before I started this counting of my days, our pastor taught through the book of Nehemiah.  Nehemiah had been given the task of rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem.  He prayed and fasted and prayed some more.  He then set out to accomplish this task, with the help of God.  The Bible tells us that Nehemiah and the men of Jerusalem worked night and day and completed the wall in fifty-two days.  When our pastor reached this part in Nehemiah he issued a challenge: “What could God do in your life if you gave him the next 52 days?”  That was an awesome challenge and I am sorry to say I did not do anything with the challenge until about two years later when I came across Psalm 90:12 in my devotions one morning, “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”  I needed some wisdom and I needed to complete some unfinished things in my life.  So, my mind went back to my pastor’s fifty-two day challenge and I determined that day to give the Lord every fifty-two days to see what He would do in and through my life.  I began dividing my year up into seven “fifty-two day cycles,” which leaves me with one free day.  That free day is my Sabbath day – a day of rest from counting!  This might all seem a little meticulous to you, but it has brought accountability into my life.  Counting my days keeps me focused on what God calls me to do in smaller chunks of time.  Counting my days helps my days to count!

Last Friday, March 7, was my fourteenth day of my current “fifty-two day cycle.”  It was also the day my husband and I attended a former mentor’s surprise seventieth birthday celebration. His wife had invited family, friends from all over the world and the men he had mentored in the past, along with their wives.  It was an amazing celebration of a life lived with the purpose of multiplication.  He began a discipleship ministry some forty years ago training young men and women to walk with Christ with the purpose that they too would train other young men and women to walk with Christ, who would then go and train more men and women to walk with Christ.  The cycle has gone on now for forty years!  At the celebration I looked at the men and women seated around my table, who had been mentored by this man thirty-five years earlier. This was the first time I had seen some of them in as many years.  They were all mentored as they worked for his ministry where they were given such jobs as packing materials in the stock room, running errands, editing materials, traveling with their mentor and helping with whatever was needed.  All five of these men and their wives were still walking with Christ. One started and has led a student discipleship ministry for over 30 years, one still ministers to college students and their leaders, one is a successful Christian businessman, one a seminary professor, and one is a mission’s pastor for one of the largest churches in the country, sending out lay people on missions throughout the world. These people were the fruit of this one man’s ministry; they were fruit that lasted!  

Five interns thirty-five years later.

Scripture tells us “The length of our days is seventy years – or eighty, if we have strength.”  (Psalm 90:10)  Our dear mentor celebrated seventy years last Friday and was able to see the fruit of the years he had poured into those men.  He has lived all the years the Bible has promised and now due to strength he presses on.  I only have about thirteen more years to seventy.  I am praying that I will make each day count and one day be able to see the fruit of my labor. As I now count down these forty days of Lent I am not only looking to live an abandoned life for Christ, but also an influential life for Christ.  I don’t want to make a name for myself, but I want to make His name known by pouring what I know of Him into the young women in my life.  Won’t you join me in counting your days?  I will pray for you today the words of Psalm 90:17, “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.” 

Counting my days!

Nancy