End Game

So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90:12

Like most of you, I was shocked when it was announced that Chadwick Boseman had died. I hoped that this was like all the other hoax death announcements that we have read over the years, but the more I dug the more I realized that this was true. Our beloved Chadwick Boseman had died.  

Truthfully, we didn’t know him long. Most of us were first introduced to him when he starred in 42, the Jackie Robinson Biopic, 7 years ago. But it did not take him long to become a part of our family. With each new movie, our pride for him swelled within. He was ours. Raised in a small southern town by humble hard working parents with no Hollywood connections. Took his dream of writing and directing to one of our schools, Howard University, where our mother Phylicia Rashad would nourish him and teach him and make sure he had what he needed. Our brother Denzel would help him too; didn't even know his name, but Denzel knew his experience. We did too. This loss was a blow.

When I found out that he had colon cancer for 4 years I was stunned. I was stunned not just because he had managed to keep this secret away from us and Hollywood which is unheard of. I was even more stunned when I considered the phenomenal work that he accomplished while he was sick. This man completed Marshall, Da 5 Bloods, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Avengers: Infinity War  and Avengers: Endgame all after his diagnosis. This is unbelievable. Notwithstanding the nausea of chemo, the fatigue of radiation, and the pain after surgery he was still doing movies! 

I wonder if he knew that he was going to die. I mean I’m sure that he was hopeful, but I wonder if deep down inside he knew it. He at least knew that with such a diagnosis, death was possible for him.  

I’ve often heard people ask the question, “If you knew that you only had a year to live what would you do?” This is a conversation starter that usually is asked and answered by individuals who have no plans to die any time soon. But seriously, if you, like Chadwick, knew it was possible that death was only 4 years away how would you want to spend those last years? What would you want to accomplish? How would you want your obituary to read? What would you want to be known for? 

I believe that Chadwick Boseman could answer those questions way before his life took this scary turn... He didn’t need a diagnosis to direct him or scare him into living his best life. Chadwick Boseman decided in health who he would be to us in death.  

We weren’t able to read his secret diaries and journals, however by just watching his body of work, we could write the purpose statement of his heart:

“I, Chadwick Boseman, will seek to inspire, build up and increase the pride of my African American Community through cinema. I will do this by choosing roles that celebrate the black man and his experiences and denying roles that come into opposition with that ambition. I will portray African American Heroes that will educate the next generation and motivate the present ones.”

I have no doubt that Chadwick Boseman lived by a purpose that drove his decisions and directed his path. 

Moses asks God in Psalm 90:12 to “teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.”  Moses felt like we needed to be taught to number our days. In his eyes it must not be our normal practice to number our days.  We seem to believe we have a lot of time. We can fulfill our purpose later. We can spend time with our family later. We can honor God with our lives later. Most of us think we have all the time in the world. We are healthy and strong and some of us young. As a consequence of that belief, our decisions are wide open. We waste our days with aimless living. Our haphazard “go with the flow” is good for nothing. Suitably our well intentions of living purposely often fail. And Moses knew this when he said, “So teach us.”  He knew that this is not something that comes naturally. Numbering our days is not something that we were created with the ability to do. We weren’t even created with mortality in mind. So God must teach us to number our days. We must be taught to consider our mortality. Psalm 39:4 echoes this thought, “Show me, O Lord, my ending, and the measure of my days, Let me know how fleeting my life is.”

We need to come to grips with the fact that 4 years from now is not promised to anyone. And if we can be taught to number our days, our choices of how we spend our days would be so much wiser. A wise heart would lead us to do what we were created to do in the first place. Our “best yesses” would be clarified. Our reason for being here would set our agendas. And we would clearly see what would be a waste of our time!

I wonder when Chadwick was taught to number his days. I believe it was way before his cancer diagnosis. Maybe it was some time during his short stint on All My Children when he raised concerns that the scripts had racial stereotypes. Maybe after he was let go, he realized that he didn’t have time to do anything that was not aligned with his purpose. And though sickness might have made his purpose more urgent, it didn’t start his path. God had already taught him.

Chadwick has motivated us more in death than he could have ever motivated us in life. He has taught us that the end is no game. It is coming to all of us sooner than we think. The chorus “Gone Too Soon” is sung far too often. Yet, interestingly, it is almost never used to honor people who have not been taught to number their days. It is almost always used for those people like Chadwick who lived on purpose! We should all want to be “Gone Too Soon.” No, we shouldn’t want to die early, however, we should want to live so purposefully that anytime our work on Earth is done, it will not have been long enough to those we are impacting.

So teach us. Use Chadwick’s life to teach all of us to number our days. Give us a heart of wisdom. Wake us up early to work on dreams that we have cast aside. Diminish our desire to waste time with our preferred time wasters. Get our priorities straight!  Help us to first live on purpose with the people who need us the most--our families. And then by Your Grace propel us to deliberately impact our communities and maybe even our world!

Lord teach us to number our days!