Psalm 90:12

12 So teach us to count our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

World English Bible, public domain

Counting days is a strange thing to ask for. Psalm 90 holds a short, plain prayer that God would teach us to “count our days” (Psalm 90:12). It is a prayer about time, and about what a man does with the time he has left.

The line sits in a psalm that is frank about how brief a human life is. What stands out is what the writer does not ask for. He does not ask for more years or a way to slow the clock. He asks to learn how to count, so that we may gain “a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). Wisdom here comes from paying attention to the days themselves, not from piling them up.

Many men carry a quiet list of things they would do differently. You might have one: the job you stayed in too long, the words you said in anger, the years you were present in body and somewhere else in mind. That list can turn into a weight you carry everywhere. This verse offers another way to hold it. Counting your days is not the same as counting your mistakes. It means letting the past teach you, then turning to the days still in front of you.

Picture a father sitting in the bleachers at his son’s Saturday game. The scoreboard clock ticks down the last quarter. He realizes his boy is 14 now, and he can almost count the seasons left before college. He thinks about the games he missed for work. He could spend the rest of the quarter replaying those. Or he could watch this one closely, cheer when his son looks up, and ask him about it on the drive home. Nothing about the past changes, but the afternoon does.

You do not need settled beliefs to sit with this prayer. Anyone who has felt time slipping by can ask to be taught how to spend it, and ask honestly, even if you are not sure who is listening. If you want more prompts written with men in mind, we keep a set on our men’s prompts page.

Before you write

Start by writing today’s date at the top of the page. That is the one day you can count for certain. Choose a single prompt below and write until you have named at least one thing you can still do, however small. A few honest lines are enough.

Journal prompts

  1. If you counted the days you have spent this past month, where did most of them go? Write the honest tally without defending it.

  2. Name one thing you would do differently if you could go back five or ten years. Then write what that regret is trying to teach you now.

  3. Think of a man who seemed to have a heart of wisdom about time. What did he do with his days that you remember?

  4. Write a short prayer asking to be taught to count your days. Say plainly what you are afraid you are missing.

  5. Some days the idea of God feels far off or quiet. What would counting your days look like even then, with only the hours in front of you?

  6. Who in your life is getting older faster than you notice? Write one thing you want to say to them while there is time.

  7. Choose one small thing you can still do differently this week, something that fits inside a single afternoon. When will you do it?