Living With Holy Urgency
[Psalm 90:12]
“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”
There is a difference between urgency and anxiety. Anxiety tells us that everything must be controlled immediately. Holy urgency tells us that some things matter too much to be continually postponed. Numbering our days teaches us to recognise that we cannot live faithfully while continually looking backwards or anxiously trying to live tomorrow before it arrives.
The story of Lot’s wife gives us a severe picture of what can happen when the heart remains attached to what God has called us to leave behind. As Lot and his family fled from Sodom, they were commanded not to look back. Yet Lot’s wife turned towards the place from which she had been delivered and became a pillar of salt. Her backward glance was more than a movement of the eyes. It revealed something about the direction of the heart.
There are moments when God calls us forward, yet part of us remains facing backwards. We revisit failures that cannot be changed, wounds that cannot be undone, opportunities that have already passed, or seasons of life we wish we could recover. The past can teach us, humble us and deepen our wisdom, but it was never intended to become the place in which we continue to live. Yesterday may explain something about who we are, but it must not be allowed to imprison who we are becoming.
The opposite danger is to become so occupied with tomorrow that we fail to inhabit today. Christ addressed this directly when He taught:
[Matthew 6:39]
“Take, therefore, no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day shall be the evil thereof.”
There is a profound realism in those words. Christ does not promise that tomorrow will contain no difficulty. He tells us not to carry tomorrow’s difficulty before tomorrow arrives. Fear of the unknown can consume the strength God has given us for the present day. We begin living inside imagined futures, rehearsing conversations that have not happened and suffering outcomes that may never occur.
Between Lot’s wife looking backwards and the anxious soul looking forwards stands the wisdom of Psalm 90. We learn from yesterday without returning to it, and we prepare for tomorrow without attempting to live inside it. God has given us neither yesterday nor tomorrow as the place of obedience. He has given us today.
Perhaps there is someone we need to forgive today. Perhaps there is a relationship we have neglected while attending to matters that seemed more pressing. Perhaps we have repeatedly told ourselves that we will become more serious about prayer, Scripture, service or obedience when life becomes quieter. Life rarely becomes quieter by itself, and the future we imagine may never arrive in the form we expect.
Numbering our days therefore requires deliberate choices. We must decide what deserves our attention before circumstances decide for us. We must distinguish between what merely demands our time and what is worthy of it. We must learn to say no to some things so that we can say yes to things of greater consequence.
The ordered soul understands that time is part of stewardship. We cannot recover yesterday, and we cannot possess tomorrow in advance. We can receive the present day, place the past into God’s hands, entrust the future to His providence, and decide what kind of person will inhabit the hours actually given to us.
Perhaps that is why the psalmist asks God to teach us. Left to ourselves, we forget. We either look backwards towards what can no longer be changed or forwards towards things that have not yet happened. Wisdom brings us back to the day before us and asks what faithfulness requires now.
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