November 10, 2024
by Pastor Chuck SwindollScriptures: Psalm 90:12
TO ME, BIRTHDAYS ARE JUST another routine realization that I'm not getting any younger. I know that because the cake won't hold all the candles.
TO ME, BIRTHDAYS ARE JUST another routine realization that I'm not getting
any younger. I know that because the cake won't hold all the candles. Even
if it could, the frosting would melt before I'd be able to blow all of them
out. One year, my kind and thoughtful assistant reminded me of another
approach I could take. She gave me a birthday card showing an old guy
standing beside a cake covered with candles. On the front it read: "Don't
feel you're getting old if you can't blow out all the candles . . ."
And inside: "Just beat 'em out with your cane."
Children are about as encouraging. In all seriousness, my youngest once
asked me if they had catsup when I was a boy. I tried not to look
offended—he could have asked if they had the wheel. But I was pleased to
inform him that we not only had catsup . . . but also electricity, talking
movies, the radio, cars, and indoor plumbing. He seemed shocked as he gave
me that you-gotta-be-kidding look. I suddenly felt the need to lie down and
take a nap.
But birthdays are milestones, specific yet mute reminders that more sand
has passed through the hourglass.
We mark our calendars with deadlines—dates that set limits for the
completion of objectives and projects. To ignore those deadlines brings
consequences. To live without deadlines is to live an inefficient,
unorganized life, drifting with the breeze of impulse on the fickle wave of
moods.
God, however, brings about birthdays . . . not as deadlines but lifelines.
He builds them into our calendar once every year to enable us to make an
annual appraisal, not only of our length of life but our depth.
The psalmist offers the perfect prayer to pray every year when our
lifelines roll around.
Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.
PSALM 90:12
Wisdom comes privately from God as a by-product of right decisions, godly
reactions, and a daily devotion to searching the wonderful riches of the
Scriptures. Wisdom is the fruit of a disciplined life.