WHAT IS MY LIFE?

We are not here for ever, though at times, with many of us, it would appear as if it were so. Earthly-mindedness is often to blame. The psalmist strikes an important note: life is transitory, its term is limited. We are quickly moving on. David requests God to make known to him three things: (a) his end, (b) the measure of his days, (c) his frailty, moving backward from effect to cause, v. 4.

Life has a terminus for us all. It will come to an end, either by the return of the Lord or our return to dust, and both are imminent. Life has also a divinely measured span. The Lord has determined it, though our physical frailty demands it. One secret of Christian effectiveness is to be constantly aware of it. Verse 5 emphasizes the truth of this fact. God makes our days as handbreadths, each present day only being what our hands can hold and say is our own. And should age be extended ever so far, it is nothing in His sight, and man at his best is but a breath. We have thus expressed the frailty, brevity, vanity and poverty of life—a shadow, vapour, grass.

The fault with man is his failure to grasp realities and his waste of time on impermanencies, v. 6. The point therefore is, “now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee”. In the span of this our quiet time, let us ask, “what wait I for?” are we waiting for something to turn up, aimless and purposeless? Is my expectation the mere realization of personal plans and aspirations? Is self our sole goal? Or is our hope in God? Have our lives one absorbing focus? Do we consecrate our day-by-day lives to His will? Is the glory and pleasure of God our daily objective? Is each day a passing boredom, or another “handful on purpose” for Him? Is God, the One whom we profess to own, serve and worship, the one drive of our days, their present portion and ultimate prospect? These are searching questions in these fleeting days, and they require, as the Lord demands, an answer.

“Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be yet not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit”, Eph. 5. 14-18.