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Psalm 90:12 |
The average
male born in North America will live 870 months. Ok that jerked a wire in my
head. I am not ready nor am I willing to start a "bucket list" and I
seriously decided a long time ago that although a "five year plan" is
a good thing they just do not work for some people, me. So if "the mind of
man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps" in my mind the way I am
panning is my five-year plan and that step He is referring to is a 32"
stride. So for the rest of us who live in the moment and seem to get results
let's not be too hard on ourselves. In school, near graduation, they told me I had to have a plan,
I had to know what I was going to do next. I wasn't really sure so I told the
high school guidance counselor that I was going to buy a motor cycle and
explore the country for a couple of years. He tried to scold me and pressed me
with the same question with an emphasis this time on vocational school or
college. I studied him for a second and quickly determined that was not a happy
person and did not like his job, himself or me for that matter. I am not going
to help this guy with his determination with his form. I bought a motorcycle. I
wanted to build a wooden ship 105 feet long with my hands and live on it. I am
now 636 months old and I am not seeing the big wooden ship happening. I am
somehow ok with that and not at all saddened. I have although gotten closer to
perfecting the "art" of living in the moment. My Grandfather was my
hero. He said some things that at the time seemed really weird, like "Jaybird..."
he called me Jaybird because I made a lot of noise. "Jaybird, they waste
retirement on old people. We should retire and after 4o years or so we should
go to work." Now that is not really practical, but at this stage in my
life, I really think I understand what Grandpa was saying. What would happen
if we could see our regrets late in life, while we were 10 years old? You see
870 months is not how we have been trained. But 70 years is not a longer period
of time. When I was really little, maybe 5 or so, the weekend would take
forever to arrive. The months seemed to be an eternity and Christmas would
almost never get to where I was. Then the days started to fly by, there goes
another month. Now the years move like months. I feel fine and have no health issues;
this is not subtle goodbye writing. I just wanted to someday write and always had it on
my list of "stuff I'm going to do." It occurred to me about a half
hour ago, perhaps in my next 32" stride I should just start writing. Lord teach me to number my days. - Jeff Harter