Nine Sevens
On Turning Sixty-Three
“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” —Psalm 90:12
I noticed as my birthday was approaching that sixty-three is nine times seven.
Seven runs deep in Hebrew Scripture. God rested on the seventh day, not because He was tired, but because the work was complete. He stepped back to enjoy what He had made (Genesis 2:2). He built that rhythm into creation itself. Work six days, rest one. Work six years, let the land rest the seventh. Count seven sevens of years, and the fiftieth is Jubilee, when debts are canceled, captives go free, and the land returns to its original owner (Leviticus 25:8–13).
The theology underneath is what matters. The message is this: nothing you have is really yours. The sabbath reveals an order of reality ordained by God. It was there before we were born and will be there after we are gone. You are a steward, not an owner. The rhythm exists to remind you of this before you forget.
Today I complete my ninth sabbatical cycle. Sixty-three years. Nine times seven.
I don’t know what to do with that except to stand inside it, look around, and give thanks.
The early cycles: childhood, then adolescence, that wilderness everyone crosses but no one crosses unchanged. Wandering aimlessly for vocational direction. Then the Marine Corps, the oldest remedy for a young man without direction. Followed by training in intelligence and cryptology, learning to find patterns in the noise and, ultimately, completing a bachelor’s in Computer Science.
The middle cycles: marriage and daughters, the slow revelation that family is not a possession but a gift on loan. The deepest work, it turns out, happens at the dinner and the communion table. As an entrepreneur, the startup years. I thought I was building something. But, I was mostly just searching.
The later cycles: helping to plant a church and watching it grow in ways I could not imagine. Then a three year journey, working on a theology degree at Westminster, learning to read Scripture redemptively, as one story from creation to restoration. At sixty, reading Herman Bavinck. At sixty-two, applying the Decalogue to the ethics of artificial intelligence. The ninth cycle was preparation. The picture is coming into focus.
And today, the tenth begins.
I don't know what completion means for a man entering his sixty-fourth year. The farm still needs tending. The work continues. My wife is still beside me. The old F100 is still in the gravel driveway. Murphy, the border terrier, still thinks he's my therapist. Some things endure.
But something shifts when you realize you’ve completed nine cycles of seven. The tenth isn’t yours to clutch. Actually, none of them were.
God told Israel they were only passing through: “The land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me” (Leviticus 25:23). So are we. Dependent on God’s graciousness. Guests at a table we did not set, eating food we did not grow, in a house we did not build.
I have not kept the sabbath as I should. But the rhythm holds anyway. That’s the grace of it. God’s sevens keep coming whether I notice them or not.
Today I turn sixty-three. Nine sevens have passed. The Lord who numbers our days has numbered mine with a strange math that points beyond itself. They’re a sign pointing to something larger: God’s ordering of time, the rhythm He built into creation, the rest that awaits. "He has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). The tenth cycle belongs to Him. As did the nine before it.
As did I, all along.
Augustine was right: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
Beautiful! Thanks for sharing.
I enjoyed this Randy!