TOPIC:‌"Facing the Brevity of Life"

‌‌  by Rev. Dr. Reg Dunlap

 

TEXT:‌Psalms 39:4-6

 

"Show me, O Lord, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life" (39:4, NIV).

 

‌Someone once said, "Time isn't marching on it's just running out." Moses had this in mind when he wrote: "The length of our days is seventy years or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away" (Psalms 90:10).

 

‌We may not want to hear it, but the Bible is forever reminding us that the years pass and death will one day arrive. And even this short span of life is filled with trouble, pain and sorrow. To quote yet another:

 

‌‌"Our vigor is fleeting

‌‌ Our best years are brief,

‌‌Our youth passes quickly

‌‌ Time's ever our thief."

 

‌Now the question arises: How do we face up to the brevity of life? Let me mention three things we must do.

 

I.

 

‌What to do with life's brevity? We must CONFRONT it TRUTHFULLY. Listen again to the vivid words of King David in verse 4: "Show me, O Lord, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life." He then goes on in verse 5: "You have made my days a mere handbreath; the span of years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath."

 

‌These words of David tell us very clearly that life is short no matter how long we may expect to live. There must be an honest reception of this truth by each one of us. Life is brief and death is certain. Joseph Cook, an independent editor and writer, once summarized man's earthly life this way: "Man's life means tender teens, teachable twenties, tireless thirties, fiery forties, forceful fifties, serious sixties, sacred seventies, aching eighties, shortening breath, dead, the sod, then God."

 

‌In confronting truthfully man's brevity we must face the fact that life is FLEETINGLY mortal. That's the word David uses in verse 4: "let me know how fleeting is my life." Man's life has the breath of death upon it. I realize in recent years the average length of life has increased, but it still faces within . . .