As I look forward to celebrating my eighty-third birthday this week, I am struck with the meaning of my life at this stage. This morning I read Psalm 39:4

“Show me, O LORD, my life’s end and the number of my days (NIV).

“O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days (ESV).

Life is fleeting, as the psalmist contemplates his. What is the value of our days as we contemplate aging and our inevitable end? Our lives are in God’s hands.

Patrick Henry Reardon, in his commentary, Christ in the Psalms, calls this psalm a prayer in the valley as opposed to the mountain-top. We experience times of reflection, lamentation, depression and despondency at times as we seek to make sense of our lives. We have dark places in our hearts as we get discouraged. He goes on to write:

“It is imperative to rid ourselves, then, of the common notion that true worship must invariably be festive, and that notion certainly is common nowadays. Because Jesus our Lord has definitively triumphed over sin, suffering and death, it is probably natural and certainly understandable that some Christians would reach the conclusion that sentiments of sadness, feelings of discouragement, despondency and dereliction have no place in Christian worship. But who among us never sees a day when all is darkness? We struggle to hold such sentiments at bay, of course, and doubtless feel guilty that we have them, but can any of us claim fully to have purged our hearts of all despair? We wonder how we can, as Christian, express such non-Christian responses in our prayer, and perhaps we think it would manifest a lack of faith if we did so. Who are we, after all, to experience feelings of despair when Christ has conquered all evil?…Have we considered that the last recorded words of Jesus our Lord in His earthly life were a question and a cry? Or do we aspire to be more Christian than Christ? God permits us to say such things to Him, for these sentiments of profound despondency are also part of Sacred Scripture, inspired by the Holy Spirit. God would not have us hide from His gaze these dark places in the heart….Our prayer of hope must strive with other, darker voices rising from our hearts.”

That hope comes from another Scripture that means a lot to me. Hebrews 12 tells us that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses from the past who are watching us

“throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily tangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Heb.12:1,2)

In my teens I ran track and was successful in winning the half and quarter miles (440 & 880 yards) in regional meets. I know what it is to put on a spurt at the end to reach the tape. It is an exhilarating moment. That is where I am at this stage of my life. I want to end well with the grace of God. I know that none of us has any control on how we end. But we can hope and pray that we will run with perseverance to do our best and give glory to God who has made us and has given us this opportunity to live. As St. Paul urges us:

“Run in such a way to get the prize…we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly….I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day.” (1 Cor.9:24, 2 Timothy 4:7,8)

That is the measure and meaning of my days. May the Lord help me and have mercy upon me. Give me that exhilarating moment to lift me from the valley to the mountain-top!