Counting Our Years
Alex Tang
bodies are not so strong and agile as they once was, nor their
memories so sharp as before, and there will be a general deterioration
of health. When he celebrated his 55th year, my friend Dr Tan Soo Inn
reflects on the counting of the years. Below is his commentary, posted
with permission. Heel the wisdom of a wise man.
Commentary: Counting the Years
"It was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was
sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the
Temple." (Isaiah 6:1 NLT)
By Soo-Inn Tan
February 26, 2010 Edition.
(Grace@Work Mail is a ministry of Graceworks: www.graceworks.com.sg).
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On the first Sunday of the year, my friend Mark preached on Psalm
90. When he reached verse 10, he asked us to do a little arithmetic.
If the verse were to be taken literally, how many years do we have
left? I will be 55 this year, so 80 - 55 = 25. Still some time left,
but not all the time in the world. The exercise was a good reminder of
our mortality. Maybe there is something to be said for how Isaiah
marks the years, by identifying a year with the death of a prominent
person.
1963, the year that John F Kennedy died. 1997, the year that
Mother Theresa died. 2009 was a difficult year for many of us. For
many it was the year that Michael Jackson died. But for many of my
friends, it was the year that Yasmin Ahmad died, the year that Anthony
Yeo died. Some of us are still recovering from the many friends that
we lost last year. When will it be our year? How do we confront the
fact of our mortality? Isaiah gives us two suggestions.
First, root your life in God. Isaiah 6 finds Isaiah in the temple,
worshipping the Lord. We are mortal. God is immortal. And God has made
us this offer:
[Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who
believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me
and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe
this . . .?" (John 11:25-26 NLT)]
I believe. I have believed for some time now. The passing of the
years reminds me that the central reality of my life is my
relationship with the Almighty, "Immortal, Invisible, God only wise.
(Walter C. Smith)" Indeed I know this God as Abba. My life is in His
safe hands. I need not fret about my departure from this life. Dad
knows best. And nothing in this life or the life to come can separate
me from His love (Romans 8: 35-39). In the year that King Uzziah died,
Isaiah is in the temple. May 2010 find us similarly rooted in our
Lord.
To be rooted in the Lord brings us to the other thing that Isaiah
teaches us about how we can face the passing of the years --- be
faithful to your vocation. Isaiah 6: 1-8 is the record of Isaiah's
call to his prophetic ministry. It reminds us of the vocational nature
of life. If my time on earth is limited, I do not want to waste my
days. I want to invest my life in what God has called me to do.
Frederick Buechner puts it nicely:
[ . . in the year that King Uzziah died, or in the year that John
F. Kennedy died, or in the year that somebody you loved died, you go
into the temple if that is your taste, or you hide your face in the
little padded temple of your hands, and a voice says, "Whom shall I
send into the pain of a world where people die?" and if you are not
careful, you may find yourself answering, "Send me."
. . . a man's vocation is a man's calling. It is the work that he
is called to in this world, the thing that he is summoned to spend his
life doing. (The Hungering Dark, San Francisco, CA:
HarperSanFrancisco, 1969, 27.)]
What is my vocation? For some time now I have believed that my
calling is to teach God's Word with "relevance, accuracy, and passion"
so that lives are transformed for Christ. In more recent times, there
has been a further fine-tuning of that mission. I seem to be tasked to
teach about the importance of relational transformation, how God's
primary way of changing lives is through relationships. This year, I
will be teaching on Spiritual Mentoring in two seminaries in
Singapore, and leading workshops on the same subject in Malaysia and
Canada. And we are receiving many invitations to teach on the subject
from churches and Christian organizations. My 2010 planner is filling
up fast.
There are many things I can do and many things I would like to do,
but with the passing of the years, I must be focused on what I must do
--- what God has called me to do. What has God called you to do?
Will I have 25 more years to live? More? Less? God knows. But in
the year that _____ died, may I be found rooted in the Lord, faithful
to my vocation.
Warmest regards
Alex