Reflection: Reverse Carpe Diem – Numbering Days

The act of reflection is a much discussed and much vaunted activity, yet I suspect many spiritual people still don’t do it or don’t do it enough. There is so much gladness of spirit to be derived from planning life and reflecting back over it spiritually.

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There is something Moses said in Psalm 90 viz, “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom,” that resonates within me. For some time now I’ve been in the practice of setting myself standards of godly demeanour and challenging myself to stick to these standards over a forty (40) day or longer period. For instance, in a recent campaign I sought not to complain. I managed to not (significantly) complain for about seventy-three days before the dam bust. (I have found that thankfulness is the ideal remedy for complaint. Be thankful and you won’t complain much.)

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I am currently on Day 12 of a new mission. This particular venture is about not looking back, but focussing on sixteen standards that I identified I needed to instil within me as a means of demonstrating spiritual growth. I find that seeking spiritual progress in this “numbering days” way is ideal for punching through the inevitable resistance we’d otherwise find on and ‘off’ day.

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Numbering our days seeks toward these objectives and gives us these outcomes:

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~~ It provides constancy of purpose -- there is a daily dose of purpose so we stay focused.

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~~ It helps us train ourselves toward resilience, with the development of good patterns over a length of time.

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~~ We get consistent and disciplined in our spiritual approach.

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~~ It’s about using the momentum that builds with each day to BE PREPARED (as we used to say in Scouts) for the coming (and inevitable) spiritual drought and soul-famine.

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~~ It’s based in the only ‘right fear,’ which is of God.

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Most of all, numbering our days and reflecting on same provides true perspective because it’s based in remembrance; remembrance, in this way at least, is based on thankfulness.

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Going back over the days numbered (now counted) and journal entries provides a sort of ‘reverse Carpe Diem’ and a ‘seizing of the day’ from a past-tense viewpoint. We can gain a lot from this type of reflection. It gives us encouragement to reflect how resilient we might have been during this process.

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The unalienable truth of life is this: Our lives are “as brief as a candle and as fragile as an eggshell.”[1] We’ll never know when our time has come. Be thankful for what you have, and mostly for what you can do. Numbering our days is but one way to discipline ourselves to do the best we can.

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Copyright © 2008, S.J. Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

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[1] Os Guinness, Unspeakable – Facing Up to the Challenge of Evil (New York, USA: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005, 2006), p. 25.