The numbering of days…

I’ve been working through our school planning over the beginning of this week. (More on that soon, I promise.) Taking the long view of the next ten months always makes me think of this verse:

Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom. – Psalm 90:12

I once heard a pastor exposit the entirety of Psalm 90, and I’ve never forgotten it. It’s a Psalm of Moses, and overall, it is a lament. The Isrealites are walking in the wilderness, in death, to death. They know there will be no rescue, no Promised Land, until the generation passes away in the desolate desert. Moses himself knows he will never walk in that sacred space promised to the descendants of Abraham. And yet…in the midst of that desolation, he cries- teach us to number our days. That we may gain a heart of wisdom.

It’s hard not to think about the numbering of days while planning almost a year’s worth of schoolwork.  My kids are good kids, but they’ve got a lot of work to do. Attitudes that need adjusting. Subjects to grasp. Shaky foundations that need strengthening. You look back  at where we’ve all been as a family the last few years and forward to what we hope will happen next.

So many of my days are spent in the same rhythms, day in and day out. Make the breakfast. Wash the dishes. Say the prayers. Teach and read and change diapers and switch a load of laundry. Make the lunch. Wash the dishes. Clean the house. Sweep the floor. Fold the laundry. Make dinner. Wash the dishes. Rock the babies. Say the prayers. Crawl into bed exhausted. A very quiet life lived mostly at home.

My life the last few years, too, has been one of sickness and sadness. Dark times where many storms crashed in. At times, the dark was so thick we began to question that we’d ever see the light again. So easy to lose hope and doubt in those times. Now we stand on the other side of it, and the sun has broken out upon the shore. And I think of Moses’ prayer.

They were on one of the most fruitless journeys- a march to death. But was it really fruitless? Moses acknowledges, lamenting, all that brought them to this place of sorrow, but yet he ends in hope- teach us to number our days. This is the truth- no matter the situation, no matter the storm, no matter where life is calling us to- no matter how fruitless and repetitive our days might seem to be- God is still working, still moving, still teaching us, still forming us in His image.

This is the truth of where we are and where we are going:

Relent, Lord! How long will it be?
Have compassion on your servants.
 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
for as many years as we have seen trouble.
 May your deeds be shown to your servants,
your splendor to their children. -Psalm 90: 13-16

It’s all unto Glory. For Glory. For Him.

My prayer for the upcoming school year?

May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us;
establish the work of our hands for us—
yes, establish the work of our hands.- Psalm 90:17