So teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:12
I find it ironic that I read this verse on leap day, a day that gets numbered only once every four years. Is there really anything special about February 29th? It doesn't add a day to your lifespan, or even to your week. It don't do much of anything . . . except make you wait a day longer for payday (and keep our calendars in balance, of course). Today went by just like any other day of the year. Just like yesterday. Just like tomorrow. Every day is essentially the same: just one little twirl of our little planet. What makes one day different from another? Only what we do in it.
Time is a treasure that can't be hoarded, only spent. If you were born with a meter counting down the days of your life, would it make a difference in how you spent them? We have no way of knowing the number of our days, but we can put a value on what we exchange them for. Every person, from the most active leader to the laziest couch potato, has the exact same twenty-four hours to spend, and what he does with them is what builds him high or drags him low. Have you traded your days for money? For knowledge? For skill? For relationships? For souls? Or for nothing at all that will last into the next day, much less eternity?
Great things cost time. But that is no reason to shy away from them -- you will spend the time anyway. To number our days is not perhaps so much about keeping tabs on the countdown, but counting up the worth of the days we have spent. Would you give a day of your life for what you gained today? Because like it or not, you did.