“Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” Psalm 90:10 (NIV)
When I was about sixteen, my pastor, who had just turned seventy a few months before, preached a sermon entitled “I’m Living on Borrowed Time”. It’s not likely that I will ever forget that sermon.
Brother Bullard was a very simple man, and yet had a knowledge of the Word of God that would put many theologians to shame. In the sermon preached that particular Sunday, and every year afterward on his birthday week; for as long as he could preach, he would preach this sermon.
He would smile a funny little smile, half humor and half sadness, as he explained that if he was allotted seventy years according to Psalms 90:10 then every year over was what he called ‘borrowed time’.
“You see,” he would say as he looked out over the congregation, “I might be living on your time, some people die a little earlier than their allotted seventy years, and some a little later. If I continue to live this year out, then I may just be living on yours, or someone else’s time.”
When my daddy died at the relatively young age of sixty-four (he would have been sixty-five in April), I remembered wondering if he had given some of his years to Pastor Bullard. Oh, I know that is supposition and some might say pure silliness, but still, it crossed my mind.
As I turned sixty this year, I wondered if I would live long enough to enjoy my next ten, and perhaps even another ten or so after that. I do so want to enjoy each and every year that the Lord sees fit to give me, but on the other hand, I don’t know that I want to live a long, long time on someone else’s “borrowed time. . .” Quite a sobering thought.
The second part of that scripture in Psalm also merits a second look; “yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.”
Perhaps it’s not until you reach sixty or so that you realize just how quickly time does fly.
Looking back on my last forty years, being a wife, raising my children, having my career, working in ministry, all of it seems to have just flown by. Sometimes I wish I could just reach out and grab the hands on the face of time and slow down the hours, the days. But of course that isn’t possible. It’s just the natural way of things.
And then there is the part about trouble and sorrow ~ they are simply a part of this life we live here on earth. Since the time of Adam and Eve we have born the burden of sin.
Look around you. Is there anyone you know who has not, or is not enduring some kind of sorrow or pain?
I am so very grateful for the Grace of our savior, Jesus Christ. Otherwise, how would we ever endure?
Perhaps that is why, at some point, we are ready to fly away – to hurry on home to glory where there is no more suffering, no sorrow, no pain. Oh what a day that will be.
And so, until that point when my time on earth is done, I will enjoy my next few hours, days, or years. If God sees fit to give me another ten after I reach seventy. . . well, I will surely treasure them; after all, they apparently weren’t mine to begin with.
I also hope that if you go before me that you have a right relationship with Christ, and that you will “fly away home” ~ to be there with Him in glory . . . after all, what more could we hope for.