With God’s protection, you can live long.
Psalm 91:16
“With long life will I satisfy him”
Last night my wife, not knowing the subject I would be writing about today, put her iPad on the dresser and said, “Listen to this!” She tapped the play icon, and a talk-show guest began talking about a Harvard University study on the key factors contributing to long life.
The study isolated five factors: 1. not smoking, 2. moderate alcohol intake, 3. healthy weight, 4. daily exercise, 5. nutritious diet.
What grabbed my wife’s attention was not the items on the list, which are familiar advice, but the number of years added to your life if you practice all five. The talk-show guest said the study found an average of more than 38 years added to a woman’s life compared to women who did not practice the five health factors (25 years for men).
Live long
When you read the list of five factors, did you do a self-test? Did you make any quick resolutions? I did. As long as I can be healthy and productive I would like to live long.
As helpful as the list is, however, it leaves out one all-important factor in longevity: the blessing of God. To those who hold fast to him in love and know his name (Psalm 91:14), to those who dwell in the shelter of the Almighty (v. 1), God promises, “With long life I will satisfy him” (Psalm 91:16).
No one and nothing affects your longevity more than God, for he controls all things, including the number of your days. “In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Psalm 139:16).
Every good and every perfect thing comes from him (James 1:17), including health, so his presence infuses your soul and body with life and health. His presence, his Spirit, is absolute goodness. Scripture says, “He is your life and length of days” (Deuteronomy 30:20). Notice that not only does he give you life, he is your life and length of days. To unite with God through union with Christ, though the infilling of the Holy Spirit, is to unite with life itself.
Nevertheless, the blessing of longevity from God is not disconnected from factors like those in the Harvard study. Scripture, and especially the wisdom in Proverbs, connects life span with life choices. In Proverbs 9:11, wisdom personified says, “By me your days will be multiplied, and years will be added to your life.” For example, Proverbs 14:30 says, “A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot.” Proverbs 17:22 says, “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”
Since the five factors have proven to be wise, they can add years to your life. And this is from God, for all wisdom comes from him.
Live well
How many years is a long life? Moses wrote, “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty” (Psalm 90:10). Surprisingly, thousands of years later and with all our medical advances, that number is still correct. Seventy or eighty years is a long life. Ninety or a hundred is a very long life.
But what good are eighty years if they are full of misery? Notice that Psalm 91:16 promises to “satisfy” with long life. So for those who hold fast to God in love, these are good years, years that make happy and content. Even when our years include suffering, they satisfy us because we walk through suffering with our God, and thus we can rejoice in him, give thanks, experience his love, faith, peace, and hope. Those who know God’s name experience satisfying years even in old age.
And in the Lord’s good time they pass like Abraham, who “breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people” (Genesis 25:8).
Yes, as you walk with the Lord in holiness, he says, “I will fulfill the number of your days” (Exodus 23:26).
Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)