The Wisdom of Numbered Days

What beach forts and Moses have to teach us about Advent

Advent strikes me as an honest season. While the rest of the year we think about resurrection and new life and victory, Advent asks us to sit with darker themes—waiting, longing, mortality. Fleming Rutledge writes that the traditional Advent themes are what she calls “the last things”: death, judgment, heaven, hell. Not exactly the stuff of cheerful December gatherings. But maybe that’s exactly what we need as the year winds down and the darkness lengthens.

I’ve been thinking about endings lately. About the things we build that don’t last.

This past summer, I was in Sequim—outside Port Angeles for those who don’t know the Olympic Peninsula. We were there with friends, and our kids built an incredible fort on the beach. They dug deep into the sand, gathered driftwood, added grass to the roof. They spent most of the daylight outside in that fort.

Then … we had to ask the kids to take the fort apart—a neighbour complained that we were taking driftwood that should stay put. The kids pushed back hard. They didn’t want to destroy what they’d spent hours creating.

But things have an end.

That fort—so solid that morning with its deep foundations and thick walls—was gone in minutes. Nothing left but smooth sand and scattered driftwood. Hours of careful work, returned to the beach that made it.

Suddenly I was thinking about more than just forts.

The Truth We’re All Avoiding

My late friend Isaac was a brilliant preacher. One Sunday, he put up a slide that simply read: Your Birth Year – 20__

He paused. Looked right at us:

“Death will fill in the blank.”

Then he read these words from a prayer attributed to Moses: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12).

I remember thinking, “Isaac, that’s heavy for a Sunday morning.” But Isaac wasn’t trying to bring us down. He was trying to wake us up.

Here’s the wisdom I want to sit with this Advent: If we want any shot at real wisdom, we have to face the one truth our culture works overtime to help us avoid.

We’re going to die.

This lands differently for each of us. The other day, my twelve-year-old said, “Dad, thinking about death feels so different now than when I was little. Back then it didn’t really make sense. But now...” She didn’t finish the thought.

Death makes us uncomfortable. It makes us grieve. But it can also make us grateful—and even help us glorify God.

The Delusion We All Believe

We live by what I call the agreed-upon delusion: we’ll deal with death later. Much later. Way later. Maybe never. It’s the elephant in the room we’ve collectively decided to ignore. We organize our entire lives around this delusion.

A few years ago, Julia and I realized we should probably have a will—you know, since we have things like children and a few assets. An estate lawyer in our church offered to help us pro-bono. We had our initial meeting. Got most of the paperwork done. But then came the homework—sections we had to fill out ourselves. All those worst-case scenarios. Pull-the-plug-or-not situations. End-of-life decisions.

Neither Julia nor I wanted those conversations—so we didn’t. It took us two years to finish our will. Two years! By the time we showed up for that second meeting, our lawyer charged us—because pro-bono offers have expiration dates too.

We postpone the important conversations. We delay pursuing what matters most. We act like we have unlimited time to figure everything out.

We don’t. The timer is counting down.

Globally, the average life expectancy is 73 years. About 26,780 days. And that’s if you make it that long. It’s not guaranteed. You might get more. You might get less. But there will be an end.

Ecclesiastes forces us to face this reality. The author—traditionally thought to be Solomon in his later years—looks at life with unflinching honesty:

“Meaningless, meaningless! Everything is meaningless!”

But this isn’t just an existential crisis. The Hebrew word translates better as vapour or mist. Solomon is saying: “Vapour! Mist! Everything will not last!”

He’s not being pessimistic—he’s being realistic. Our lives are brief. Our achievements fade. The promotion we worked so hard for will be forgotten. The house we spent years perfecting will someday be sold to strangers. The relationships we treasure will end. The beach fort will be torn down.

This might sound depressing—but it’s liberating. When we stop living by the delusion of unlimited time, we start living by the wisdom of numbered days.

The delusion whispers: “You have all the time in the world.”

Wisdom shouts: “The clock is ticking! Wake up to what matters!”

This is why Jesus talked about time with such urgency—not to create anxiety, but to cut through our delusions:

“Seek first the kingdom of God.”

“What good is it if you gain the whole world but lose your soul?”

“Today is the day of salvation.”

Jesus understood what we forget: time is our most precious and limited resource.

We all know this, deep down. When we’re at a funeral, we remember. When we get a diagnosis, we remember. When we hold our newborn child, we remember—this is precious because it won’t last forever.

But then we go back to our routines and forget. We slip back into the delusion.

What if we didn’t? What if we lived each day remembering that our days are numbered?

Daring Honesty

“Teach us to number our days...”

The Psalm gives us a clue: we need to be taught. We need help seeing clearly. Left to ourselves, we’ll keep living in the delusion.

The Psalm calls us to daring honesty—the courage to face uncomfortable truths about our lives. Daring honesty means admitting you don’t have unlimited time to waste on things that don’t matter. It means acknowledging that the grudge you’re holding might outlast the relationship if you don’t deal with it. It means recognizing that the dream you keep postponing might never happen if you don’t act soon.

But daring honesty goes deeper than time management. It means facing the truth about our own limitations, our own mortality, our own desperate need for something beyond ourselves.

A few years ago, I found myself in a prolonged season of depression. Everything felt flat, meaningless, empty. I struggled to find any sense of joy or purpose. In that dark season, I opened my Bible to Ecclesiastes, and for the first time, those words didn’t sound depressing—they sounded honest.

“Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!”

Finally, someone was telling the truth about how life felt. But as I kept reading, I discovered something remarkable. The same book that forced me to face the vapor-like nature of existence also celebrated the possibility of joy.

Ecclesiastes says:

“There is nothing better for mortals than to eat and drink, and find enjoyment in their toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God.”

And again:

“Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has long ago approved what you do.”

That’s daring honesty: life is vapor, but God still offers us joy. Your days are numbered, but each numbered day can be filled with good gifts. You can’t control how long you live, but you can control how you live.

This is what the Hebraic wisdom tradition demands. Unlike mystical traditions that promise secret knowledge or esoteric insights, biblical wisdom is refreshingly earthy and practical. It says: face the truth about your life here on earth, in your body, in your relationships, in your limited time.

When we stop pretending we have unlimited time, something beautiful happens: each day becomes illuminated as a gift. Each conversation becomes more precious. Each ordinary moment becomes an opportunity for gratitude.

I think about those mornings when our children were toddlers and everyone was sick. The house was a disaster—dishes everywhere, laundry strewn about, remnants of breakfast scattered across the table. But in that tight-knit circle on the couch, with Julia and the girls laughing together despite their coughs and sniffles—joy was there. Not because circumstances were perfect, but because life was happening. Real life, messy life, numbered life.

That’s what daring honesty teaches us: you don’t have to wait for perfect circumstances to choose joy. You just have to wake up to the gift of today.

The daring honesty of numbered days doesn’t lead to despair—it leads to gratitude and joy. When you truly understand that today is not guaranteed, you stop taking today for granted.

Some of the most joyful people I know have faced their mortality most directly. They’ve counted the cost, numbered their days, and discovered that limited time makes everything more beautiful, not less. They’ve learned the secret Moses discovered in this psalm: the wisdom of mortality is the gateway to the joy of being truly alive.

The Heart of Wisdom

“...that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

This ancient prayer of Moses points us directly to Jesus—the ultimate example of someone who numbered his days and gained a heart of wisdom.

Jesus lived with constant awareness that his time was limited. “My hour has not yet come,” he said early in his ministry. And then, when the time came: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” He walked toward Jerusalem knowing exactly what awaited him. He lived every day with the cross in view.

But this awareness of his numbered days didn’t make Jesus grim or anxious. It made him wise. It gave him crystal clarity about what mattered most. It enabled him to say no to good things so he could say yes to the best things.

When we gain a heart of wisdom, we start to live like Jesus lived—with urgency about what matters and peace about what doesn’t.

But here’s what makes this challenging for us: our culture has turned the pursuit of happiness into a religion. We’re constantly sold formulas for joy, steps to fulfillment, systems for optimal living. Just organize your closet the right way, follow the right morning routine, optimize your productivity—and happiness will follow.

Wisdom laughs at our formulas. Wisdom knows something our culture doesn’t: you can’t optimize your way to joy any more than you can organize your way to eternity.

The heart of wisdom begins with what Proverbs calls “the fear of the Lord”—taking God seriously, recognizing that he is God and we are not. This isn’t cowering in terror; it’s coming to terms with reality.

God’s days are not numbered. Ours are.

God’s wisdom is perfect. Ours is limited.

God’s love is eternal. Our time to receive and give that love is brief.

During that season of depression, I flipped through my worn Bible to Ephesians—a letter I had read many times. But Scripture has a way of refusing to become overly familiar. I couldn’t understand how I had missed these words: we are “being filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

In my journal, I wrote: “A full life is the fullness of God.”

This became my lifeline—not because it gave me a formula for happiness, but because it reminded me of the source of true fullness. When my emotional life was flat and joyless, I could still hold onto this hope: God’s fullness is available even in my emptiness.

That’s the heart of wisdom: knowing where to go when our own resources run out. Our own resources always run out because our days are numbered. But God’s resources never run out. His mercies are new every morning. His love endures forever. His wisdom is available to all who ask.

James tells us, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” God’s generosity knows no bounds, because he has already given us his Son, who embodies wisdom for us.

The heart of wisdom learns to receive each numbered day as a gift from the God whose days are not numbered. It learns to find joy not in perfect circumstances but in the perfect faithfulness of God.

When Jesus faced his final numbered days in the Garden of Gethsemane, he sweat drops of blood as he prayed three times: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

This is the heart of wisdom in action—surrendering our limited understanding to God’s unlimited love. Even when the path gets narrow, even when the cost gets high, even when we can’t see how the story ends.

Advent Wisdom

Numbering our days doesn’t make life feel shorter—it makes each day feel fuller. When you stop living by the delusion of unlimited time, you start living by the wisdom of limited time well spent.

Maybe this is why the church gives us Advent each year—this season of honest waiting, of acknowledging darkness before we celebrate light, of confronting mortality before we proclaim new birth. We need to be reminded that our days are numbered. We need to practice facing what we’d rather avoid.

My friend Bernice would often answer the question “How are you, really?” by saying with the most genuine smile, sometimes through teary eyes, “I’m just so happy to be here.” After decades walking through addiction and recovery, after facing her own mortality many times, she had gained a heart of wisdom. Every ordinary moment was a gift.

Your birth year was 19__ or 20__. Death will fill in the blank of your last year. But between now and then, you have today. You have this moment. You have the opportunity to gain a heart of wisdom.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And wisdom—real wisdom, the kind that comes from numbered days and honest hearts—is the beginning of the most joyful life imaginable.

Here’s what Isaac understood, what Moses knew, what Jesus demonstrated: when we truly face the fact that our days are numbered, we don’t become more afraid of death—we become more alive to life.

Which brings me back to that fort on the beach. Hours of work, returned to sand and driftwood in minutes. Maybe that’s not tragedy. Maybe that’s just truth. Everything we build here is temporary. Every structure we create will eventually return to the elements.

But the joy of building? The laughter of children working together? The beauty of driftwood arranged just so? Those moments happened. They were real. And numbered days don’t make them less precious—they make them more.

So where are you living by the delusion of unlimited time? What conversation are you postponing? What joy are you waiting for perfect circumstances to embrace? What wisdom are you too busy to receive?

Advent gives us permission to ask hard questions. To face uncomfortable truths. To number our days.

And in numbering them, to discover they’re more precious than we ever imagined.