Numbered Days vs. Days Unnumbered (Genesis; Hebrews 11, Ps. 39, Ps. 90, Job 14)

On this cusp of a new year any social media feed one could possibly look at reeks of resolutions and wishes for happiness as well as woes and laments for the past two years full of trouble and sorrow and isolation and disruption of “normal,” whatever that is. Change, while inevitable, is not optional, and humans tend to either love it or despise it depending on our bent. Change is also not always in our control. As I finished another read-through of Genesis today, I couldn’t help but look at change in light of the season of numbering our days and measuring them and looking forward.

Numbered Days

No matter the numbering or length of our days, they will always be short in light of days unnumbered, of eternity spent with Christ before God's throne. 

Abraham’s days were numbered at 175 years, an amount of life we can barely conceive of today. Genesis 25:8 tells us he was “an old man who was satisfied” (AMP). He left all he had known behind him in favor of following God to a place that He would show him. He died never having seen the fulfillment of the promises, yet he believed, and he was rewarded for his faith, and we are blessed through him (Heb. 11:13). 

Isaac’s days were numbered at 180 years, an even greater amount of time spent on earth. Genesis 35:29 speaks of him as “an old man full of days” (AMP). They weren't all easy (imagine being bound on an altar and understanding you were the intended sacrifice before being delivered by God who provided for Himself a lamb. They weren't all bad. Life is full of hikes up mountains and time spent in valleys.

Jacob, too, has many years of life, dying at 147, but at 130 years of age he speaks to Pharaoh of the “years of his pilgrimage” and says “few and unpleasant have been the years of my life” (AMP). 

Joseph dies at 110 years of age, and Genesis closes with his words to his own generations (whom God allowed him to see and hold) that look toward a time of removal from a place of captivity to another better land that God had promised (50:22). 

In the numbering of our days, the measuring of them, we don't always make wise decisions. Sometimes we make rash vows or resolutions (the extreme of Jepthah comes to mind), deceiving ourselves about the extent of our own control over our lives, and the patriarchs seemed to be no exception. Jacob, not knowing his own beloved Rachel held the idols she had stolen from her father (again, about control and right of inheritance in her instance) rashly vowed that whoever had Laban’s household idols would not live (Gen. 31:32). Rachel literally sat on them and escaped with her life in that instance because of her own deception of her father, just as her husband had preciously deceived his father over a birthright before running for his own life after stealing Esau’s birthright. Joseph’s brothers, also knowing their own "innocence," also made a rash vow declaring that whoever had Joseph’s “stolen” cup found in his saddle packs would die and the others live to be his slaves (Gen. 44:9). Fortunately for them, Joseph only want their return and ultimately their survival and did not hold them to that rash word spoken in ignorance, just as Jacob’s had been spoken earlier and unknowingly about Rachel. How often do we ignorantly speak of that we do not know and do so in arrogance and feel justified about it?

Life Is Hard

"Life is hard and then you die," can be seen on both bumper stickers and t-shirts. Joseph's life might have been the inspiration for the quote. He spent almost one hundred years in a place that was not his home, and yet instead of being bitter and angry, he never lost the desire to return to a place he knew God had promised. He trusted God completely and lived the life to the best of his ability wherever he was, whether that was a prison or a palace. Even when we lack control over the situation itself, we all have a choice in the way we respond to the situations in which we find ourselves.

This makes me think of what my life is as I spend  it on earth. I, too, am a sojourner, one who is living temporarily in a place that is not my home. Maybe it is easier for me right now to understand this than it is for many. God in placing His call upon my husband for ministry (and likewise upon me because we are one) called us to leave the home that we had purchased and lived in for many years. We sold it and now live in the pastorium of the church my husband pastors. We were strangers here when we came almost four years ago, and we know we will leave it one day and another will inhabit it; the home will never truly be “ours.” There is no ownership regardless of how long I live in this place. My attachment is limited because of the temporary nature of my time here. My attachment is different than it was when it was “mine.” My perception has changed because my situation has changed at God’s direction. I have become a tent-dweller of sorts. While I am thankful and see the obvious blessing of this time in my life, I yet still struggle sometimes against the temporary nature of my sojourn here because my flesh longs for a place to call home, a place to dwell in forever, a place that is my own.

So How Do I Deal with This?

Psalms 91:12 speaks to us to number our days, to apply our hearts to wisdom. Psalm 39:4 also instructs us to measure our days, understanding they are limited and frail. Job 14:1 helps me understand that the days are evil and few in number regardless of how many I have. I will have trouble in this life regardless of how much I long not to. Matthew Henry says “since [man’s] days are evil, it is well they are few.” Can you imagine living as long as Methuselah, almost one thousand years, knowing that there is nothing new under the sun and troubles come in abundance, and when days are abundant, more trouble is seen? I can’t even begin to fathom living that long, nor would I even want to, at least here on earth.

The length of our days varies; the way we measure them varies; but the God who holds the balance never changes. I will never be at home here (Lord, help me never feel at home!), and I will never truly own anything in this temporary thing we call life. My prayer as I number my days and measure them in what is the decline of the body in which I live is that I will remember that I am a sojourner here and act accordingly, that I will long to be with the Lord who has given Himself for me to redeem me from the evil days, that I will never fail to tell others about His faithfulness as I write about the days in a life of a sojourner. Then I pray that I will be gathered an old woman, satisfied, full of days, eager to be home after the “few and unpleasant” years of my life; that I will, like Joseph, have an attitude in me that wonders at others who are sad and depressed at their lives imprisoned here with me, and ask, “Why do you look so downhearted today?” (Gen. 40:6-7) because of the hope that is within me regardless of my circumstances (Christ IN me the hope of glory); that I will never cling to the “evil days” longing for more of them when the light of heaven dawns brightly in front of me, beckoning, offering DAYS UNNUMBERED.