Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday today, as it is for pop singer Shakira, footballer Barry Ferguson, Former Korean President Park Guen-Hye! And happy Birthday to our twin daughters who have recently had a birthday.
Birthdays are so exciting when you are young. The cake, the cards, the party. Perhaps you can remember a childhood birthday, or a present that you received as a child. I can just remember getting the Playmobil boat, and another time a Technic lego car. Very exciting. When you are young, they are so exciting. 6 ¾ means that you are soon about to be 7, and it feels a lifetime between each birthday.
I suppose that as you grow up having a birthday can be a bit of a mixed blessing. Yes, there’s still the sense of your special day, and hopefully you get spoiled by loved ones, but then there’s also the down side that sense that you are getting on.
One of my friends turned 47, and he said that it felt a lot closer to 50 than 45, even though it wasn’t! The Bible gives us a lot of realism. In the Psalms there’s a song, actually written by Moses, which means it’s well over 3000 years old, perhaps one of the oldest songs in literature.
In it Moses reflects on the transience of life, like grass that is here one moment and then swept away the next.
The Psalm goes on with the famous line that our days may come to 70 years (“three score years and ten”) or eighty if our strength endures, yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow for they quickly pass and we fly away.
But in that Psalm, Moses has a great line. “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom”. He’s saying, “Lord let me recognise that while my life passes quickly, it can be full of meaning and usefulness if you show us your love”. A prayer answered in a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Do look up Psalm 90 if you have a Bible and turn it into a prayer for yourself.
My wife was recently asked if her birthday was a special one, and I guess they meant one with a zero at the end. She said every birthday is special, because it’s another year of experiencing God’s goodness. That’s a great attitude. So if you have a birthday coming up, can I wish you a Happy Birthday.
Let’s finish with a track by Eva Cassidy, whose 59th birthday would have been 59 today.