“[The sun] rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other.”
—Psalm 19:6, NIV
I recently turned sixty, and I have to admit—that number caught my attention.
When I was a kid, sixty sounded old. It was the age of my grandparents. I remember hearing that someone was sixty years old and thinking they had been around forever, and now, somehow, here I am.
Not that I feel particularly old, because I don’t, and I hope I have a lot of good years ahead of me. But no matter how generously you do the math, I am well into the later miles of my life, and what strikes me most is how quickly I got here. Sixty years sounds like a long time until you live them.
The poet Jane Hirshfield wrote, “A day is vast, until noon, and then it’s gone.”
Isn’t that the truth? Morning arrives with an entire day stretching out ahead of it, and then you look at the clock and somehow it is lunchtime. Before long, it’s afternoon, then evening, and another day has disappeared over the horizon.
King David must have noticed something similar in Psalm 19, where he pictures the sun coming out in the morning “like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.” The sun doesn’t wander across the sky. It races across the heavens, and before long the light is gone. There is something wonderfully alive about that picture. God’s creation doesn’t merely exist—it moves with joy and purpose, and we are meant to live that way too.
Someone once said, “The days are long, but the years are short.” That feels truer to me at sixty than it ever has before. Maybe that is why Scripture reminds us to pay attention to today. Moses prayed, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12, NIV). Not count them fearfully, but number them wisely.
David Roper, a pastor and writer I have long appreciated, is known to say, “Time flies, and so do we.” It is a sobering truth that doesn’t make me sad as much as it makes me want to be awake. I don’t want to spend whatever time I have left on this earth wishing for yesterday, worrying about tomorrow, or missing today.
Hirshfield also observed that time is hard to find, and easy to lose. Isn’t that strange? We are always saying we can’t find the time, and yet somehow we let so much of it slip away.
The point is this—don’t miss today. Love the people God has put in front of you. Do the good that is yours to do. Notice the beauty around you. Savor the moments. Say what needs to be said in kindness. And most of all, give God your attention.
Because before you even see the first glitter of dawn, the sun is already running its course. A day seems vast, and so does a life, but then… it’s gone.
Live this day well in Jesus.
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