Teach Us To Number Our Days

I tend to think the big moments of life as the time when I get to justify myself, prove that what I was doing was important, as if the greatest moments happen at weddings and funerals. But what if the greatest moment of your life was that time at dinner when love covered someone else's sin? 

What if we instinctively measure a life's value backwards, seeking to be faithful in big things, when really, we need to go clean our toilets? What if the moment that makes or breaks you is in something you'd hardly thought about? Didn't even consider it a big deal? Never really softened your conscience enough to know it mattered? What if, in misunderstanding greatness, we are brushing aside the great thing God has for us? 

We are really bad at measuring the value of our lives or the importance of a moment, and there is a good chance that the most important thing I will ever do is something repetitive, tedious, unpleasant, and out of sight. What if my submission and love to God in faithfully cleaning toilets for others to use is the greatest moment of my life? What if that's the testing ground where gold is drawn forth? 

There is a good chance that the most important moments of life will go/have gone unseen by all but God. I always wonder what widow will come forth, having given her all, in the revealing of heaven, when the sum total of our lives is known. And am I willing to give like a widow?

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Teach us to reach for what is truly good. Teach us to read more Proverbs and pray more Psalms, that we might live well, not by man's measurements but God's.