Nobody teaches this to themselves. The psalm asks God to do it, which tells you it is not a skill you pick up by staring at a calendar.
Sunday afternoon, and you are going through the week ahead. Every slot is accounted for. None of it is the thing you said in January you would make time for.
The heading attributes the psalm to Moses, and it reads like the work of someone who has buried a generation. It sets the brevity of human life against the permanence of God. Next to that, any lifespan looks short. The psalm does not flinch from that. It asks for help living inside it.
Numbering your days is not morbid. It is arithmetic. You have a finite number of Saturdays, a finite number of conversations with your mother, a finite number of mornings when your knees work the way they do today.
Most of us live as if the supply were unlimited, and then we spend it like it is. We put off the call. We assume there is a later version of us who will be more patient and more available than we are being right now. The inbox gets the best hours. The people get what is left.
The request is not for fear. It is for wisdom, and wisdom here means treating a limited thing like it is limited. A heart of wisdom is not a mood. It is a set of choices that look different once you have counted.
Ask for it this morning. Then look at what is actually on your calendar today and see whether it matches what you would choose if you had counted. Change one thing before the day fills in around it. Move one item, or make the call you have been putting off.
