How do you start your day? I often find myself thinking about the different appointments I have set even before I have finished making my coffee in the morning. I think that this is typical of anyone who has a family or business to care for these days. You may even be thinking to yourself right now,"Do I really have time to read this?". Well, try your best to focus on what I'm getting ready to say because it could literally change your entire life. How could I do that, you might ask? Let's reflect for just a few minutes on a passage that David wrote in Psalm 71.
But I will hope continually, and will yet praise you more and more. My mouth will proclaim your righteousness and your salvation all day long; because I don't know how many days I have to live. ~Psalm 71:14,15
David wasn't sure about the outcome of some of his relationships, especially those of his enemies; those that took counsel together against him. David was pleading for God's help earlier in verse 12 of this chapter and asking for the enemy to be confused and removed, and to be found a reproach and dishonored in verse 13. But the very next thing that he writes totally changes the outcome of his life!
Not only does he say that he will have hope but that he will also praise God more and more.
When I read this passage, I asked myself if I could relate to what David was saying here. As I thought about this and how we often come up with strategies and plans when we find that someone is taking counsel against us, especially if we know we are doing what's right! Boy, does the blood pressure rise and the tempers flare as our self defence mode is triggered? We want to stand up for our dignity! Of course we do, but look at the reaction of David and learn something from David's Day Planning that Carnegie's and other popular courses would never teach you.
First we see that David was a little older now, as we look down in verse 18 where he says, "now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God forsake me not". In his aging David had come to realize that God was the one and true hope for all situations that he may face in Life. David was a fighter at heart, yet he had turned to God in verse 15 and I'll quote him in saying,"My mouth will proclaim your righteousness and your salvation all day long!" Then he says, "Because I don't know how many days I have to live."
David was praising God, Yes, because he had become wiser and understood something about time management.
Who knows how many days we have left on this earth? I certainly have no clue about the length of my life, do you? Having said that, how have you planned your day? Should we consider the actions of a much wiser and older David, a man after God's own heart? If you're already flying through your day full speed ahead, take just a moment at break or maybe the next stoip light; think about the choice that David makes back in verse 15 and consider his example for your life.
"My mouth will proclaim your righteousness and your salvation all day long;...." ~Ps.17:15
Who knows, you may not have that many days left on this earth. Will people remember, as David says in verse 18, that you carried the strength and power of God with you?
"O God, don't leave me; until I have showed your strength to this generation, and your power to every one that is to come." ~ Ps.71:18
Take a long hard look in the mirror, just as David does here. I believe this is what the wise old David would have wanted us to write in our Day Planners today and every day for as long as we are alive. I want to see a man in the mirror whose mouth is proclaiming righteousness and God's salvation (liberation from bondage) any time of the day to the younger generations, because I don't really know how many days I have to live. Selah.
