So teach us to number our days, that we may attain a heart of wisdom. -- Psalm 90:12, RLIV.
THE Christian, in numbering his days, does not do so with a doleful or disconsolate sentiment, although he does so with sobriety. He counts the days as they go as so many blessings, so many privileges, so many opportunities to "show forth the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light," to render assistance to others in the pilgrim journey, and to develop in himself more and more of the character pleasing in the sight of God, -- to become more and more a copy of God's dear Son. -- Excerpt from "The Close of a Noble Life", ZWT, October 15, 1901.
The meaning of "number our days" appears to be the equivalent of saying "make our days count". Sadly, very few of the consecrated do this at an early age, and even those who endeavor to do so often fall short. As we grow older, we gain experience and experience often gives us wisdom. People of the world are also learning wisdom to some extent as they grow older, and such may be of benefit for them in the day of judgment. For the child of God, however, the wisdom needed centers in Christ, through whom we obtain the wisdom of God. -- 1 Corinthians 1:30. -- RRD.
To make our days count to attain wisdom, we should have our minds set on the Heavenly Father and His Son constantly, in everything that we may say, do, or even think. It also means that we have to study what God has revealed in the Bible, with the goal of applying the principles we learn from such study to everything we do throughout each day. We should not, however, expect to become perfect in the flesh totally, but rather the goal is to perfect our faith and love in our hearts as new creatures, which will lead to subjection of the flesh to the new creature. -- RRD.
The following is adapted from The Herald of Christ's Kingdom, March 1929. The name of the author is not given:
When we gave ourselves in full consecration to the Lord, we agreed that "the time past of our life" had sufficed to have wrought in us "the will of the Gentiles" (1 Peter 4:3), and that. we should not "henceforth live unto ourselves, but unto Him which died for us and rose again." (2 Corinthians 5 :15) It was then we began truly to number our days. We commenced to measure each day by the work to be performed and by the purposes to which life should be applied; and since that time, to whatever extent our days have, in humble submission to the Divine will, been filled with acts of obedience and love, and have been given their own measure of faithfulness, they have been numbered. They have been made to count. They have, so to speak, been registered in the Divine records. The days of idleness, those where selfishness has controlled, as well as those marked by lost opportunities, unaccepted privileges and blessings, have been unnumbered.
