Your alarm goes off as you hit snooze for the thousandth time and roll over in bed. “How is it Monday morning again?” you groan to yourself. Maybe it’s just me who struggles to get going in the morning and is in shock that the weekend went by so quickly. I sometimes feel as if the days and months slip between my fingers like jelly. I find myself asking “How is it already July?” when months ago I was wondering how it was already the beginning of 2023.

I think any person will tell you that time just seems to go by quickly, especially the older you get. My dad always says that it’s mathematical that each year goes by more quickly than the previous because each year of your life becomes a smaller percentage the older you get. When you were eight years old, one year of your life was a much bigger deal than one year as a sixty-four year old.

Even though we are often acutely aware of how quickly the days and months go by, we often don’t realize how fleeting our entire life is. It’s easy to think you’re invincible when you’re twenty-three and fresh out of college with so much of your life ahead of you. I remember one time I was sitting in Central Market (the best Dallas grocery store) during my lunch break reading Psalm 90. I had just read vs. 12 which says “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” I happened to look up and see a dear elderly lady nearby struggling to eat her lunch. At that moment I burst into tears with compassion for that lady as I thought about how one day she had been young and spry and was able to perform the most basic human functions with ease. I believe the Lord used that scenario not to make me fearful of getting older but to remind me that my days are not my own and that I don’t have as much time as I think I do.

How humbling it is to think that no matter how healthy you eat or how much you try to work out and take care of yourself, you don’t determine how long you live. Job 14:5 says that “his days are determined, and the number of his months is with you {God}, and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass.” In Psalm 139:16, we learn that “in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” God calls His children to have an eternal mindset, entrusting each day to Him. How often have I thought that my time is my own when I am really just a vapor on this earth. James 4:13-15 says “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’ – ‘yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’ ” How much better would it be if we simply learned to ask the Lord to help us use each day to His glory and not our own.

Tomorrow isn’t promised, no matter how young you are. Each day that you live is a result of the Lord’s kindness and sovereignty; He has a purpose for your day because he woke you up this morning. Now turn off that alarm and seize the day!!