Teach Us to Number Our Days

Log in to take the quiz and save your progress.

1. Observe

   What comparisons describe the brevity of life (vv. 4-6)?

   • Eternal monuments
   • A thousand years before God are like yesterday or a watch in the night; people are swept away as in sleep; in the morning they sprout like grass and by evening they wither and are dry
   • Long-standing mountains
   • Centuries of slow growth

2. Observe

   What is the relationship between numbering days and gaining wisdom (v. 12)?

   • None
   • Numbering days is unrelated to wisdom
   • Numbering one's days — recognizing their limit — is the disciplined awareness that produces a heart of wisdom; the math of mortality forces priorities, ends procrastination of important things, and unmasks what doesn't matter; wisdom is the fruit of this deliberate counting, not of comfortable forgetfulness
   • Counting days makes one foolish

3. Interpret

   What does it mean to have God as one's dwelling place (v. 1)?

   • A physical address
   • A church building
   • That one's deepest sense of home is located in God himself rather than in any earthly place, institution, family, or possession — all of which can be lost; this provides a home that does not depend on circumstances, that travels with the person across moves and losses, and that is secure even when external homes are absent; God's dwelling has been the constant across all generations, predating mountains, outlasting institutions, and offering belonging that cannot be evicted
   • An emotional feeling

4. Interpret

   Why does mortality awareness produce wisdom?

   • It doesn't
   • Because endless time would teach the same wisdom
   • Because limit clarifies value — knowing the supply is finite forces choices about what is worth the spending; mortality teaches what comfort and security cannot, namely that postponement is luxury we don't have, that small irritations don't deserve the weight given them, that relationships matter more than transactions, and that eternity has actual stakes; the awareness disciplines time without paralyzing it, producing the heart of wisdom that uses days well
   • Because death is good

5. Apply

   What work most wants to matter beyond one's years, and what would it look like to ask God to establish it?

   • No work matters beyond one's years
   • Such asking is presumptuous
   • The work might be raising children in the faith, building a ministry, writing something true, mentoring others, embodying a marriage that points beyond itself, or specific acts of love and justice — anything one would want to outlast one's life; asking God to establish it means actively committing the work to him in prayer, doing it under his name and for his glory, and trusting that what he establishes endures even when one's own contribution is finished
   • Only spiritual works qualify

6. Apply

   How do mornings shape days (v. 14)?

   • Mornings are unimportant
   • Days are unaffected by mornings
   • The first taste of the day — what one encounters and consumes early — sets the soul's posture for the hours that follow; mornings filled with God's loving kindness (Scripture, prayer, the conscious orientation toward God) supply the satisfaction that carries through the day's demands; mornings filled with anxiety, news, social media, or task lists shape the day toward those frames; the discipline of morning hesed produces all-day rejoicing
   • Mornings should be empty

Your journal

Write your own answers — they save automatically, and only you can see them.

Log in to write and save journal answers.