...concluding with death. These years may very well be our most challenging years. He is in charge of our lives. He appointed the aging process. Our older years are His years, and they are ordained for His purposes.
My mouth is filled with Your praise
And with Your glory all day long.
Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
Do not forsake me when my strength fails (Psalm 71.8-9).
"Listen to Me, O house of Jacob,
And all the remnant of the house of Israel,
You who have been borne by Me from birth
And have been carried from the womb;
Even to your old age I will be the same,
And even to your graying years I will bear you!
I have done it, and I will carry you;
And I will bear you and I will deliver you” (Isaiah 46.3-4).
For He performs what is appointed for me,
And many such decrees are with Him (Job 23.14).
1 Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, "I have no delight in them";
2 before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain;
3 in the day that the watchmen of the house tremble, and mighty men stoop, the grinding ones stand idle because they are few, and those who look through windows grow dim;
4 and the doors on the street are shut as the sound of the grinding mill is low, and one will arise at the sound of the bird, and all the daughters of song will sing softly.
5 Furthermore, men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags himself along, and the caperberry is ineffective. For man goes to his eternal home while mourners go about in the street.
6 Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed;
7 then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.
8 "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher, "all is vanity"
(Ecclesiastes 12.1-8)!
Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them (Psalm 139.16).
Dr Hal Habecker's Comments:
When life brings us to our final days, weeks, or months, we do not know what they will be like. Our lives may end with an unexpected death (e.g. an unexpected heart attack), or they may end with a slow, painful, debilitating illness. We do not know. But we can anticipate and prepare for hard times. We already have a deep awareness of what those days could be like. We have watched friends die. We have watched our parents live their final days. We read stories and newspaper accounts of final days. We’ve attended funerals and memorial services. So in as much as we are able, let’s think about and anticipate how we will live our own final days. Let’s prepare to live these days with a strong mindset of trusting God. I have always loved Proverbs 24.10 – “If you are slack in the day of distress, Your strength is limited.” We have no reason not to be prepared.
Commentary (ref www.BibleRef.com)
Psalm 139:13–16 describes God's omnipotence: His attribute of being all-powerful. The psalmist, David, described God's omniscience in verses 1–6 and His omnipresence in verses 7–12. In this section, he links omnipotence to the way God created the writer in his mother's womb.
This Scripture affirms that God knows everything about our lives, in advance, with His perfect omniscience. The Lord saw David's unborn state and planned the days David would live.
No human being can predict accurately how long he or she will live. Proverbs 27:1 warns us not be presumptuous, "Do not boast about tomorrow," it warns, "for you do not know what a day may bring." James counseled: "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit'—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring" (James 4:13–14). How should we deal with the reality that we do not know how many days we will live? James said we should live each day doing the Lord's will and trusting that the results are ultimately up to Him (James 4:15).
Also, we should pray as Moses did, "So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom" (Psalm 90:12).