By Herb Berkley

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12, ESV)

A man I know turned fifty-four last year. The moments began to feel heavier—not because he sensed he had more time, but because time itself seemed to behave differently. Each moment felt like the midpoint of an hourglass. We’ve all seen it. Once the sand crosses the middle, everything appears to accelerate. What once felt spacious begins to narrow. What once felt theoretical becomes immediate.

The future stops being an idea and starts becoming a presence.

Questions that once waited politely now interrupt without asking permission.

What’s coming?
What remains undone?
Where does this actually end?

Endings no longer feel abstract. They feel visceral. Honest. The emptiness of “what’s next” often presses closer, not as panic—but as awareness. Time no longer feels neutral. It starts demanding answers.

You’re not getting any younger now.

That realization doesn’t merely produce anxiety; it produces a demand for interpretation. Moments are no longer interchangeable. They feel charged—weighted with consequence. The issue isn’t getting old. It’s understanding. How should these moments be lived now? What deserves attention? What no longer does?

This is where many people turn instinctively to purpose—but often in the wrong direction.

Scripture never treats time as filler. Days aren’t excess material. They’re measured because they matter. When Moses prays, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12), he isn’t asking for more time. He’s asking for clearer sight. Wisdom doesn’t come from extended years. It comes from understanding what time is for.

Ecclesiastes sharpens the tension further: God “has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). We carry a sense of permanence inside a life that is not permanent. That tension isn’t a mistake—it’s the point. Time is not the destination.

It’s the classroom.

And this is why the pressure intensifies in the middle.

When the illusion of endless time fades, the soul begins asking different questions. Not louder ones—truer ones. Purpose is no longer about becoming impressive. Identity is no longer about construction. The deeper concern emerges: What will I do with the moment that is my life?

We Look in the Wrong Direction

Most of us search for purpose by watching other people. We trace their paths. We imitate what looks successful or meaningful. We follow lives that seem ordered, confident, full. And when comparison takes root, it doesn’t stay neutral. It becomes coveting—not because we want their possessions, but because we’re ashamed of what we think we’re missing.

James pulls back the curtain on what’s actually happening:

“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.” (James 4:1–2)

Coveting isn’t mostly about wanting more. It’s about being ashamed of what feels absent.

And what’s actually missing?

Intelligence? Education? Autonomy? Identity? Relevance? Control?

No.

What’s missing is truth that leads to understanding. We’re not confused because we lack information. We’re confused because we’re trying to discover purpose in a place where it was never meant to be found.

Jesus makes this plain: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth….. but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19–21).

The heart always follows what it believes will secure life. When purpose is sought horizontally—by comparison, by achievement, by reputation—identity becomes fragile. It has to be constantly defended, updated, validated.

Scripture offers something else entirely.

The Cross Changes This

Purpose isn’t discovered. It’s revealed.
Identity isn’t constructed. It’s received.

Paul doesn’t describe his life as self-made. He says, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). That’s not radical metaphor. It’s relocation. The center of his life has moved. The self no longer sits on the throne.

And the cross is where this happens—not as decoration, but as the axis of everything.

At Calvary, the vertical and horizontal meet. God reconciles heaven and earth in the body of His Son. Paul writes that through Christ, God was pleased “to reconcile to himself all things… making peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20).

The cross doesn’t just forgive sins. It reorders reality. It makes relationship with the ordinary, daily, messy, horizontal world possible by first restoring relationship with God.

Which means purpose isn’t pending. It’s settled.

Life is no longer about inventing meaning before time runs out. It’s about living faithfully inside meaning that has already been declared. Time isn’t something to kill or consume. It’s something to steward. Each moment becomes an opportunity to live in alignment with what’s eternally true.

So the question shifts.

What will I do with this moment?

Will I spend it chasing an identity Christ has already defined?
Will I invest it in distractions that promise fulfillment but can’t deliver?

Or will I receive what God has already made clear—that meaning, value, love, and purpose are found not by striving upward, but by abiding in the One who came down?

When everything else feels scattered, God’s truth holds. It gathers up what’s restless in us and puts it where it belongs—in Jesus. Not in what we’ve built or how we compare. Just in Him. The One who existed before time, who entered it, and who remains when it’s gone.

The moment that is your life isn’t wasted when it’s lived in Him.