Life’s Too Short to Waste a Moment

As I sit outside on a lush midsummer day, the sun pouring over vibrant green trees and bright blooms, I’m reminded again of how fleeting life is. The wren sings from its perch while hummingbirds dart from flower to flower. Everything around me is alive, yet it all whispers the same truth: life on this earth is brief.

I recently turned 59. Another lap around the sun and I’ll reach 60 if the Lord wills and I live that long. The years are rushing by, and what once seemed like a distant reality now feels closer than ever. I find myself thinking often of Moses’s ancient prayer: “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

Time Slips Through Our Fingers

The older we get, the more we realize how quickly time passes. I can still recall moments from decades ago as though they happened yesterday: childhood sleepovers, teenage car rides with friends, the overwhelming joy of holding my first child. Now, that child is nearly the age I was then.

Moses knew this reality well. In Psalm 90, he contrasts God’s everlasting existence with our fleeting lives:

“Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” (Psalm 90:2)

Compared to God’s infinite timeline, even our longest lives seventy or eighty years are but a breath. Psalm 90:4 reminds us, “For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.”

Two Hours in God's Yesterday

If a thousand years are like yesterday to God, what is eighty years? Barely two hours of yesterday’s passing shadow. Yet these brief hours are not insignificant. God doesn’t measure worth by duration but by what He values. Some of life’s most meaningful moments last only minutes a wedding vow, a child’s birth, a quiet conversation that changes everything.

Our short lives matter deeply because each minute carries eternal weight. 2 Corinthians 5:10 makes this sobering clear “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” Every choice, every word, every act of love or selfishness will echo into eternity.

Learning to Number Our Days

Moses’s prayer “teach us to number our days” is not a call to anxiety, but to wisdom. It’s an invitation to live intentionally, understanding that every day we wake up is a gift. James 4:14 reminds us, “You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”

As I sit beneath the summer sky, I feel the weight of that truth. My younger years now feel like summer’s height; today, I sense autumn approaching. And winter, as every Minnesotan knows, is not far behind.

Yet numbering our days is not meant to crush us. It’s meant to free us to help us cherish the precious, ordinary moments God gives and to fix our hearts on what truly lasts.

Living for Eternal Significance

We were not created to live aimlessly or to fill our brief lives with distractions that numb us to reality. Ephesians 5:15–16 exhorts us: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”

The time we have is short. But in Christ, it is also full of purpose. The smallest acts of faithfulness loving our families, encouraging a friend, speaking the truth, praying for others are seen and treasured by God. No hour is wasted when lived in obedience and love for Him.

A Heart of Wisdom

As I age, my prayer echoes Moses’s more and more “Teach me, Lord, to number my days that I may get a heart of wisdom.” Because true wisdom sees life through the lens of eternity. It refuses to squander the present in selfish ambition or fruitless worry. Instead, it embraces today as another opportunity to glorify God.

In this brief life, every moment matters. Not because we can control the outcome, but because God sees each moment, and in Christ, He infuses them with lasting value. One day, we will stand before Him not with decades in our hands, but with the record of how we used our brief time to serve Him.

Don’t Waste Your Brief Life

If today you feel the weight of time slipping by, don’t let regret paralyze you. Instead, let it drive you to live intentionally to serve, to love, to speak, to give, and to worship in the moments God grants. Psalm 39:4-5 says, “O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you.”

Life is too brief to waste but never too brief to matter.

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