At the end of a year we look back and see all the changes that have taken place in our lives and that of the world since twelve months ago. We have no guarantee that we shall see another year. But it is natural that we should wish to see our life fulfilled. We want to see our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren do well. We want to see the work we have done over the years bear fruit. Certainly that is a major drive in my life. At the end of the book of Deuteronomy Moses faces the end of his life. He wished to enter the promised land for which he had spent forty years in the wilderness after leading his people out of slavery in Egypt. The Lord said that he would give it to his descendants, that he would let him see it with his own eyes but it was not to be that he should enter into it.
Anglican preacher F.W. Robertson (1816-1853) once said, “there is an irrepressible wish in our hearts to see success attend our labors, to enter into the promised land in our own life. It is a hard lesson: to toil in faith and to die in the wilderness, not having attained the promises, but only seeing them afar off.”
Our prayer is that what we have labored at over the years would continue to bear fruit, that our efforts would not be lost, all the love that we have poured into others would not have been in vain. Moses prayed, “May the favor (beauty, loveliness) of the Lord our God rest upon us, establish the work of our hands for us – yes, establish the work of our hands.” (Psalm 90:17)
In memorable phrases in Psalm 90 he reflects upon the eternity of God and the brevity of human life. He prays that God would “satisfy them in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.” What is the key to this satisfaction? Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Ps.90:12) To pause and number the days that have been allotted to us, to keep track of them, and to make them count for eternity, is to gain a heart of wisdom. How do we do that?
Some people do not do it well. It is possible to recognize the transience of human life and still not gain a heart of wisdom. The Epicurean sees the brevity of human life as an invitation to selfishly enjoy life while it lasts, without any sense of responsibility or accountability. His object is to delay and deny any consideration of eternity. He tries to cram as much pleasure into each day as he can, but he is a fool if he simply lives for himself. On the other hand the Sentimentalist gets maudlin about human frailty and gets depressed about aging, and the sentence of death. He has no hope for the future, has no dreams, and ends up complaining about his condition. He is self-centered in his dissatisfaction with life.
In contrast to the Epicurean and the Sentimentalist, the follower of Christ seeks to number his days aright by considering the value and the permanence of the past. What has already happened in our lives is our true inheritance – it is already established. Nothing can take away from us from God has given us and done through us. The forty-year-old son of a friend of ours took his own life because his wife left him for another woman. When I spoke with them I said, “You have done so much for him over the years and you wonder what more you could have done, but I know that you have done all that you could do. In the last analysis he had to be responsible. He must have been in a great deal of pain. God loves him more than anyone. He is at peace. You still have your memories of raising him as a child and young man. No one can take that away. He brought joy to you both then and that cannot be erased.”
Those who have gone before us are not lost. The lives of writers, poets, painters, statesmen, king and queens, military heroes, inventors, and saints are more ours than they were the property of the generation who saw their daily life.
Moses prays that the “favor, the beauty, the graciousness of the Lord rest upon us.” Robertson again,
We survive. We are what the past has made us. The results of the past are ourselves. The perishable emotions, and the momentary acts of bygone years, are the scaffolding on which we build up the being that we are. As the tree is fertilized by its own broken branches and fallen leaves, and grows out of its own decay, so is the soul of man ripened out of broken hopes and blighted affections…. The permanence of work ‘establish the work of our hands for us’. Feelings pass, thoughts and imaginations pass: dreams pass: work remains. Through eternity, what you have done, that you are.
God establishes the work of our hands for us by working in us and through us. Jesus said, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” (John 5:17) What is the work of God in us? St. Paul wrote, “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” (Phil.2:12,13) God gives us the ability to do the work that will fulfill his good purpose. Therefore, “Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Cor.15:58)
What work would you like to do before you die? What fulfillment will it bring you? When you die what lasting effects, if any, will it have? Invest your time in people and projects that will live on after you die: be a friend, share the gospel, give someone what they need, donate time and money to the work of the Lord. What will your obituary have to say about you? Epitaphs used to tell us a great deal about the life of the person buried beneath the gravestone. One that was found in Lydford Churchyard in England reads as follows.
Here lies in a horizontal position the outside
case of
George Routledge, Watchmaker
Integrity was the mainspring and prudence
the regulator of all the actions of his life;
humane, generous and liberal,
His hand never stopped till he had relieved
distress.
So nicely regulated were his movements that
he never went wrong, except when set going
by people who did not know his key.
Even then he was easily set right again.
He had the art of disposing of his time so well,
till his hours glided away, his pulse
stopped beating.
He ran down, November 14, 1801, aged 57,
In hopes of being taken in hand by his Maker,
Thoroughly cleaned, repaired, wound up, and
set going in the world to come, when
time shall be no more.
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