Since I'm not one to set concrete goals that are related to my age (for instance, some are determined to publish a book by the time they are thirty), this particular birthday has brought with it neither a sense of accomplishment nor a sense of failure. However, I must say that having accumulated so many years on this earth, I have begun to wonder how I have spent them. The problem with years--or any measure of time, for that matter--is that I am required to spend them as they are given to me: one at a time. We are not given the luxury of saving them up one by one, as though we possess some sort of cosmic piggy bank that allows us to save our time for a rainy day--or perhaps a looming deadline. No, our days pass by us whether we choose to utilize them or not, and I am now in a position to wonder what I have done with my share, which on the day I turned thirty amounted to 10,957 days. I spend most of my days wishing for more time, and yet the record shows that I have had plenty--more time than many enjoy in this world. To be sure, I wasted many of those days, as though they were worthless, or as though I had an infinite supply. Some days I wished that no more days be given to me. All too many days I cared not what the outcome of those days would be, only that my desires and wishes be at the center of them. And yet I do not look at those days with too much regret--perhaps because I prefer not to remember, or perhaps because I believe my wasted days have been covered by our Savior.
I am, however, concerned with the next 10,957 days, should the Lord choose to grant me that many. When I consider my days one by one, they seem insignificant, as thought they were nothing but pennies on the sidewalk that come in handy at the checkout stand, but for the most part are not worth the time or effort required to turn around and pick them up. And so pass all too many of my days. Certainly one can make a case for the significance of each day on its own, filled with opportunities to love my neighbor, or to take joy in simple pleasures, such as the soft touch of my wife or the laughter of my daughters. But when I consider that another thirty years might well be ahead of me, those pennies begin to add up. When I think about what I might accomplish with only one day, even my best day, I have a difficult time stirring up hope that I can make much of a positive difference in this world. But place that one day alongside 10,956 others, and my dreams become ideas, and my ideas become plans, and I am given much hope.
We often look at the ills of our world and the suffering that exists, and we wonder what good we might do if only we had the opportunity. We are like a young man who gazes longingly through the store window at a guitar that he cannot afford, dreaming of the day that hundreds of dollars will suddenly appear in his pocket or bank account so that he can walk into the store and buy the guitar. Day after day he returns to the store to dream of holding the guitar in his hand, thinking himself unlucky to not have the financial resources others do. He does not realize that were he to sacrifice only a little and save his pennies day by day, one day he would be able to walk into the store and fulfill his dreams! In the same way, we do not realize that we do have the opportunity to do so much good in this world. But if only we were willing to comprehend the potential of the sum of all of our days, we might quickly understand how the little impact each day can bring will quickly add up to substantial change. And knowing that, we might sit down and carefully and earnestly pledge to spend each day not on ourselves, but on others, seeing that those days will one day add up. Or, we might not. The good that we might do can only come about if we are willing to sacrifice a little each day.
And so I ask myself what daily sacrifice I will make each of the next 10,957 days. I cannot be so brash or proud as to think I know what those many days will hold, or that I will even be given that number of days. Perhaps some days will be filled with grief or others troubled by some unforeseen misfortune. But should the Lord be pleased to grant me at least that many, I do not intend to stand on the other side of those days and wonder aloud what could have been different had I realized the value not only of each individual day, but of the sum of those days as well. Many poets have urged us to live each day as though it were our last. Perhaps that is good advice for some. I, on the other hand, intend to live each day as though ten thousand more will follow, and that what I see when I am sixty years old and looking back on the expanse of three decades depends largely on what I do today--what I sacrifice, what I do with the small but significant opportunities given to me, and whom I love in the name of our Savior.
