Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Shelley Schurch
Sunday, July 28, 2024
This makes me smile – a snail resting on a mile marker, as if he or she is gathering strength to resume the journey and make it to Mile 9.
Ever since I saw this snail last week, I’ve been thinking about marking progress, not at a snail’s pace but at a human’s pace. I’ve been mulling over measurements.
Measuring can be motivating. In the morning, when I step on a scale, I’m happy when the resulting number shows a downward trend. In the evening, when my fitness tracker tallies up the steps I’ve taken during the day, I rejoice when the number shows an upward trend.
It seems I’ve been measuring and counting all my life. When I was young, I counted the days till my birthday, and felt a solemn joy when my age finally numbered in two digits. And how my friends and I, poring over the Sears and Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs, counted the days until Christmas!
Then I counted in years – the years until I could get my driver’s license, and the years until I could vote. I counted both achievements a great privilege, and still do.
The older I get, the more numbers I calculate. How many milligrams of sodium in this salsa? How many hours of sleep last night? How many glasses of water consumed today?
And yet, the older I get, the more I bristle if someone else is counting my years. I’ve thought about this reaction, and concluded that it’s not just that I’m more aware that I have more earthly years behind me than in front of me; it’s that I don’t want you to count my years and then discount my usefulness. Don’t tell me I don’t count anymore.
Turning to my Bible for counsel and consolation, I read in a psalm that is described as “A Prayer of Moses, a Man of God”:
So teach us to number our days,
That we may gain a heart of wisdom.
(Psalm 90:12 NKJV)
Our days are numbered. We don’t know those numbers, but any fears that crop up as we mull over that calculation we can give to the One who numbers stars and hair:
He counts the number of the stars;
He calls them all by name.
(Psalm 147:4 NKJV)
. . . the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
(Matthew 10:30 NKJV)
Some of my favorite Bible verses include language that lifts limits, that is beyond numbering and measuring, such as these passages:
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20, 21 NKJV)
. . . not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
(Titus 3:55-7 NKJV)
When Jesus comes, and takes us home, it is all because of His abundant saving grace that we will join a multitude beyond measuring:
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9, 10 NKJV)
Until that Day, we can count on Him to walk beside us, all the way Home.