Only God Knows the Number of our Days
My father-in-law’s doctors said he only had six months to live. Dad knew they were wrong because, like Hezekiah, he asked for 15 more years, and that’s the number of years more he lived. My grandmother lived to be 99+ years. My mother, 94. Longevity seems to run in the family. My mother-in-law turns 99 on October 31st. Each of these women asked for God to take them “home” long before they went “home”. Still in the womb, young or old, I’ve learned it’s not over for any of us until God says: “Time’s up there and welcome home here!”
I have a loving and faithful friend who “mothered” many people into becoming fully devoted followers of Christ. She has suffered for some time from a debilitating illness, and longs for her departure to heaven. I have another friend whose young husband passed last year. And there’s my husband who was never sick a day in his life who seemed to pass too early.
How many days DO we have left? No one knows except God. He knows the exact number of years, days, hours, and seconds that we will occupy our address on Planet Earth and the exact moment we will cross over to the other side. “All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:16) “A man’s days are numbered. You know the number of his months. He cannot live longer than time You have set.” (Job 14:5)
I find great comfort in knowing that God has my life so ordered that I will neither die a day sooner nor live a day longer than what has already been recorded in His book. Life and death are far above my pay grade, so I will happily let Father God take care of that department, thank you very much.
If I correctly understand this profound truth, then I am freed from the fear of death to fully live the life that God planned for me. I can enjoy an intimate walk with the One who is intimately involved in each minor detail of my days. He never lets me out of His sight. His mighty hands guide my every move and He is never limited by my circumstances (Psalm 139: 1-12). God is so involved in my life that He was even there at the very moment my mother and father conceived me in love. While I was in the womb, He even supervised my most minuscule details.
God knows us and He knows our loved ones. He knows everything about us. He planned us, built us, watches over us, can steer us back on track when we wander from His purpose. He can be trusted to keep us safe until His Divinely allotted numbers of our days have expired and then take us to the next life that He has prepared for us. He has done such an inexpressibly great job with this life, I can’t even begin to imagine what’s on tap for the next!
Bottom line – we can jump through every hoop we can, have every test done over our bodies, and fear every sickness that comes down the pike (including Covid); be in a car accident or be very old and die of a simply worn-out body. My comfort is in knowing that God has the set time of my life – of our lives. No one’s assignment is completed, until He says so. That’s why I live in such sweet peace from fear of anything. The enemy does not have the last say. Only God does. God is in control. It’s wonderful to live on this side of trust. It’s wonderful to know that He knows us and the number of our days. In the meantime, I’m going to live each day as a gift of life here until I go there! How about you?