Taking Fresh Stock Of What’s On Life’s Shelf

Pastor John Coulombe

Whether in good health or ill, whether our mileage in life is low or high, whether bodies and ‘tents’ are weathered or in tip top shape, it’s always important to evaluate one’s life’s directions and purposes. That’s perhaps why a new year motivates us to begin fresh, take stock of what’s on the shelves of our lives and to re-stock it for the days ahead. Hezekiah was told by God in Isaiah 38 to set his house in order because the number of his days were few. That’s good advice for all of us, no matter how many days we think we have left.

In case you’re wondering about when my ‘number’ may be up, my calendar reveals that as of January 5, 2011, I perhaps have 1,754 days left to live. I have already lived 23,926 days, which amounts to 65 years, 185 days, including 16 leap years.

When and why did I come up with these wild figures and this wild thought? It was 30+ years ago while reading Psalm 90:10-12: As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years. Or if due to strength, eighty years . . . For soon it is gone and we fly away . . . So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom. So—I decided I would begin counting my days once a week, using 70 years instead of 80 because when living and ministering in our previous ministry, a motorcycle was my means of transportation for work—and pleasure! Little did I know at the time I would later deal with cardiac issues and prostate cancer.

But why would I begin what seems like a compulsive behavior? I wanted perspective and I wanted wisdom and my rationale was two-fold: If it’s a lousy day, “I may only have 1,754 days left to live and then I’m outta here!” There is an end in sight and I can hang on a little bit longer. On the other hand, if it’s a lazy day, “I may only have 1,754 days left to live and I, like you, was made with purpose—it’s time to re-evaluate, re-enlist and re-boot!”

This past year, I must confess, I back-slid from my previous New Year’s wish/change list so I have made some new resolutions as to how I want to live in the coming days. I’ve discovered that “If I always do what I always did, I’ll always get what I always got!” . . . and I want to continue to be changed into the image and likeness of my God. So, this past week I re-upped and made several mid-life, uhhh, ‘later-life’ course changes for myself. And I was encouraged by these timeless resolves of Jonathan Edwards from days gone by:

Resolved:

  • To live with all my might while I do live;
  • To never do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life;
  • To be endeavoring to find out fit objects of liberality and charity;
  • To never do anything out of revenge;
  • To never suffer the least emotions of anger toward irrational beings;
  • To never do anything which, if I should see in another, I should count a just occasion to despise him for, or to think in anyway the more meanly of him;
  • To never say anything at all against anybody, but what is perfectly agreeable to the highest degree of Christian honor, agreeable to the lowest humility and sense of my own faults and failings and agreeable to the Golden Rule; and when I have said anything against anyone to bring it to, and try it strictly by the test of this resolution.
  • In narrations, never to speak anything but the pure and simple truth.
  • To maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking. Never to give over nor in the least to slacken my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be. And after afflictions, to inquire: ‘What am I better for them? What good have I got by them?’ and ‘What might I have got by them?’
  • To never to lose one moment of time, but improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can. That I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.

(Jonathan Edwards 1703-1758, American Theologian and Preacher)

Love, Pastor John