Psalm 90:12-17 (NRSV)
Read Psalm 90:12-17 on biblegateway.com
Verse 12So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.
Verse 13Turn, O Lord! How long? Have compassion on your servants!
Verse 14Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Verse 15Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil.
Verse 16Let your work be manifest to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.
Verse 17Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands- O prosper the work of our hands!
Devotion
What’s on your calendar for today? Perhaps a meeting or two, coffee with a friend, time volunteering, a report to write, children to bathe, phone calls to return, the rush hour commute. One study showed that the average person requires 36 hours in a day to fit in everything they want or need to do. Sound familiar?
“Teach us to count our days,” the Psalmist writes … or, put another way, “Teach us to make our days count.” With 36 hours of activities to cram in, too often life feels more like a rat race than a time of abundance. But the psalmist reminds us that our days count when we tend to our relationships. When we spend time in prayer. When we help someone else. When we are grateful for what we have. A life that counts isn’t so much about the amount of work accomplished as it is life spent with the One who helps us accomplish it.
Prayer
Lord, as I go through the day today, help me to make my time count. Amen.