Counting Days
Have you ever told your tween or teen kids, “You’ve got your whole life in front of you”? Usually, it’s part of conversation about something they’re not quite old enough to do just yet. They’re so eager to acquire experiences, and you’re just as eager for them to hold off, to grow up a little, to let their maturity catch up with their enthusiasm before jumping in.
This week, though, why not surprise them with a conversation that nudges them in the opposite direction? Help them to see that life is way too short and that they’d better not waste any time before getting serious about one key aspect of living.
We’re pulling our discussion questions from Psalm 90, in which Moses talks to God about how short and full of trouble human life is. It’s not a message many kids are used to hearing, especially from parents. But it’s an essential component to becoming a wise person. Wisdom hears the ticking of the mortality clock and remembers that we’d better not waste today on serving ourselves.
As Solomon put it in Ecclesiastes, we hope our kids will remember their Creator in the days of their youth. We hope that they’ll be motivated by the shortness of life to invest the energy of youth for eternal rewards. We want them to count their days carefully as good reason to “gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)
We hope a few of these questions will help to start that conversation.
Talking Points:
- How long has God existed? How long will He exist? [Parent: See Psalm 90:2.]
- How long is a single human life in comparison to the length of God’s life? [See Psalm 90:3-6.]
- Assuming a new generation is born every 40 years or so, how many generations have been born, lived, and died since 1900? [Parent: Almost 3 generations have come and gone, going back to your child’s great-grandparents.]
- How many generations have lived and died since the birth of Jesus? [Parent: More than 50(!) generations have come and gone in the last 2000 years.]
- If God has always existed—and human lives are so very short in comparison to His—how much more do you think He knows about everything than we do?
- God has watched hundreds of generations of humans come and go, all of them born into sin and rebelling against Him. Why do you think our sin makes Him angry?
- Do you think He knows every sin we do?
- How can we possibly live forever with Him after He’s seen all the sin we do? [Parent: This question is intended to create an opportunity to reinforce the salvation message and re-emphasize the grace of God. We want to help our kids be able to articulate how anyone can be saved.]
- The average human lifespan is between 70 and 80 years. Does that feel like a short time or a long time to you?
- If you live until you’re about 75, what percentage of your life have you already lived?
- Do you think life is hard for a few people? For most people? For everyone?
- Is it unfair that some people die really young?
- What if someone lives for 75 years, stays really healthy, has a lot of money, and does most of the “good things” in life? Would that be a “good enough” life on this earth? [Parent: We want to help our kids to see that this life isn’t what God made us for, that even at its best it’s full of pain and groaning and heartache, that the life God intends for us in heave in a million times better in every imaginable way.]
- When you think of how perfect heaven is and how painful this life is, should we be glad we don’t live here too much longer? Why or why not?
- Do you think it’s a good idea to remember how short our lives really are? Should we keep track of how many days we might have left here? [Parent: Think about reading Psalm 90:12 with your child.]
- When we realize how short life is, what should we do about it? Should it change the way we live? [Parent: Help your student see that it should remind us that we really need God’s wisdom to make the most of the time we have here, to really honor Him with our day.]
- How can we gain a heart of wisdom?
- What can you do while you’re young to start serving God with your short life here?
- Does it make sense to wait until you’re older to start serving God?
- Do you ever get concerned about wasting your life or not making the most you can of it?
- What are some specific ways you could get a “jump start” on your next life by investing in things that will last forever?
- Does remembering that we’re all going to die someday mean we have to be really sad all of the time?
- Does remembering how short life is make us more or less likely to be grateful to God for saving us through faith in Jesus?
- Can understanding that human life is short actually make us more joyful, more likely to want to sing praises to God?
- Does realizing that life is short help us to pay better attention to what God is doing?
- What are some of God’s works that you’ve noticed?
- At the end of Psalm 90, Moses asked God to establish his people’s work. What are some of things that you’re involved in that you would want God to establish—to make so valuable that it still matters after you’ve died?
- What are some things you—or we as a family—could get involved in that will still matter in heaven or on earth long after our generations have come and gone?
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