Learning from the Eternal Farmer

UV 3437/10000 Learning from the Divine Farmer
So teach us to number our days, that we may cultivate and bring to You a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90 v 12
We need to be taught to number our days. Naturally, we assume that we will live long and we can do the things that seem important later on. This gives rise to the spirit of procrastination. Naturally, we are under the illusion that we will live forever. We lack foresight as well as hindsight. Only when we listen to God and His word, will our hearts be quickened or made alive. When we come to grips with God, we come to take a grip on life. The Holy Spirit will teach us to know how finite, limited are our days on earth. He teaches us how mortal, how quickly our souls can depart from our bodies. He will teach us how infinite, how amazing is the wisdom and grace of God. He will teach us how to use our time and opportunities wisely and also get a time sense, how to do, say and decide the right thing at the right time. He will teach us not to set too much store by our earthly goals and results, whether good or bad but to judge ourselves in the light of eternity.


We are accountable for the days we spend on this planet. One of the chief purposes and one of the best ways we can spend it is by cultivating a heart of wisdom. Our hearts are naturally perverse and inclined to evil just as land left to itself will give rise to all kinds of weeds and wild plants. It requires thinking, careful consideration of what to cultivate to make even the most fertile land useful and beneficial to its owner. It requires planning. It requires consistent implementation of the plan. It requires devotion, determination, dedication, discipline and diligence. It requires ploughing, watering, fertilizing, removal of weeds, levelling and so on to make the land fruitful. So also we need to cultivate our minds and hearts to make it fruitful to the Lord. It requires a sense of vision. It requires patience as the vision grows and bears fruit.

We need to number our days as we are to be possessed of a sense not just of vision but of urgency. We need to make our hearts wise or productive within the days allotted to us, whether more or few. The Word is the best plough to create the furrows in our minds, the best leveler to level out our pride, arrogance and other angularities or irregularities. The Word is the best seed to plant in the heart and mind. The Word is the best manure to help us endure, the best fertilizer to multiply the results of our efforts. The Word is the water of life to our hearts to soften it to make conditions just ripe for the right seed to grow, mature and reproduce after its kind. We need to surrender our hearts to Jesus and the Holy Spirit for all these processes to take place, some simultaneously, some sequentially.