“The days of our years are threescore years and ten… yet is their strength labour and sorrow.” – Psalm 90:10
However, God does not measure life by duration; He measures life by donation of life to give meaning to its essence. The greatest Man who ever lived, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, lived, ministered, died and rose at *33* – and 2,000 years after, His 3 years of public ministry still dictates history.
This essay is a repudiation of our obsession with longevity. It is an affirmation that impact, not age, is the true measure of a man.
Below is an assortment of witnesses – men and women, who lived and died before their 50th birthday:
- JOHN MENSAH SARBAH – 46 [1864-1910] – Ghana – Scholarship, Law, and Nationalism
Sarbah died at 46, but in that short span he did what 100 men cannot do in 90 years. One of the most brilliant and leading lawyers of his day — not the first, as he himself acknowledged in the preface to _Fanti Customary Laws_ (1897) his senior Lawyer Eminsang as “a senior member of the Western Province of the Supreme Court of the Gold Coast, having commenced his practice when we, who are now members thereof, were but school boys.” He rejected the Colonial narrative that Gold Coasters had no law. His classics _Fanti Customary Laws_ (1897) and _Fanti National Constitution_ (1906) are still the bedrock of Ghanaian customary law and constitutional thought. He founded the Fanti National Education Fund, defended the Aborigines Rights Protection Society against the Crown Lands Bill of 1897, and proved that intellectual nationalism could defeat imperialism. He lives in every law faculty in Ghana.
- PHILIP PAUL BLISS – 38 [1838-1876] – America – Music and Hymnology
Bliss died at 38 in a tragic train wreck at Ashtabula, Ohio, trying to save his wife. Yet in 12 years of hymn writing he gave the Church hymns that will outlive nations: _It Is Well With My Soul_, _Hold The Fort, Almost Persuaded, Wonderful Words of Life, Let The Lower Lights Be Burning._ He did not live long, but he taught the world how to sing its way to heaven.
- PATRICE EMERY LUMUMBA – 35 [1925-1961] – Congo – Political Nationalism and Pan-Africanism
Prime Minister for 67 days, murdered at 35. Lumumba’s crime was to believe Congo belonged to Congolese. His famous Independence Day speech on 30th June 1960, tearing apart Belgian colonial mythology before King Baudouin, remains the greatest anti-colonial speech in Africa. His body was dissolved in acid, but his name became the ideology of African nationalism. Every radical movement in Africa after 1961 called itself Lumumbist.
- ANNIE REBEKAH SMITH – 27 [1828-1855] – America – Religion, Poetry and Hymnology [WOMAN]
Annie died at 27 of tuberculosis, just 4 years after her conversion to the Advent faith in 1851. Sister of the great theologian and editor Uriah Smith, she joined the Review and Herald office as one of Adventism’s first women writers. In that brief season she authored 45 articles and poems, and 12 hymns that still carry the weary pilgrim home.
Her voice lives in _How Far From Home? SDAH 439_, _I Saw One Weary SDAH 441(my late mother’s favourite. She died at 38),_ and _Long Upon The Mountains, Weary SDAH 447_. She wrote not from a pulpit, but from a sickbed, yet her lyrics live on. Annie Smith proves that depth, not duration, is what God counts. She slept in Jesus at 27, but her songs have not slept.
- STEVE BANTU BIKO – 30 [1946-1977] – South Africa – Scholarship and Liberation Thought
Biko died at 30 on a mat in a prison cell in Pretoria, beaten to death by apartheid police. Medical student, founder of the Black Consciousness Movement. His central thesis – *”The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”* – liberated South Africa psychologically before political liberation came. His book _I Write What I Like_ is still required reading for any African who wants mental freedom.
- MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. – 39 [1929-1968] – America – Religion, Oratory and Civil Rights
Assassinated at 39. Fifteen years of public ministry. Nobel Prize at 35, youngest ever at the time. He did not live to see the America he dreamed of, but his _Letter from Birmingham Jail_ and _I Have a Dream_ redefined Christian political ethics for the 20th century. He proved that non-violent spirituality could bend an empire.
- JOAN OF ARC – 19 [1412-1431] – France – Diplomacy, Intelligence and Faith [WOMAN]
A peasant girl, illiterate, dead at 19 – burned at the stake. In 14 months she led the French army to victory against the English, negotiated truces, crowned a king, and changed the course of the Hundred Years’ War. Canonized as a Saint 489 years after her death. She remains history’s greatest example that courage and divine conviction have no age and no gender requirement.
- WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART – 35 [1756-1791] – Austria – Music
Dead at 35, buried in a pauper’s grave. In 30 years of composition he produced over 600 works – symphonies, operas like _The Magic Flute_, _Don Giovanni_, _Requiem_ – music so perfect it is still the standard by which all music is judged. He lived like a child and died poor, but his music has employed millions and healed millions more for 250 years.
- ADA LOVELACE – 36 [1815-1852] – England – Science, Scholarship and Technology [WOMAN]
Daughter of Lord Byron, died of cancer at 36. In 1843 she wrote notes on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine that contained the first computer algorithm in history. She foresaw that computers would go beyond calculation to create music and art. A century before the computer was built. The US Department of Defence named a computer language “Ada” after her. Every app on your phone carries her ghost.
- ALEXANDER THE GREAT – 32 [356-323 BC] – Macedonia – Statesmanship, Diplomacy and Empire
Dead at 32 in Babylon of fever. In 12 years of conquest he created an empire from Greece to India, founded 20 cities including Alexandria in Egypt, spread Greek language and ideas that made the New Testament possible, and never lost a battle. He lived fast, died young, but the world he created – the Hellenistic world – lasted 300 years after him.
THE VERDICT
What do these ten teach us? Psalm 90:12; *teach us* to *number our days* that we may gain the *heart* of *wisdom.*
*First:* That life is not measured in years but in use. Sarbah at 46 did more than many who live to 96.
*Second:* That Ghana is in desperate need of this ethic. We celebrate birthdays, not impact. We count years, not contributions.
*Third:* That youth is not a disability. Jesus at 33, Joan at 19, Biko at 30, Alexander at 32 – they all proved that God and history often trust the young with the heaviest assignments because the old have become too cautious.
If you are 25, 30, 40 or less than 50 and reading this, you may continue praying for long life but don’t stop there. Also pray for a meaningful life. Long life without impact is long punishment with the troubles our sin-filled life.
As the Apostle Paul, who also died young at about 60 [in ancient terms young for a rabbi], said: “I have finished my course.”
May we finish ours however short it may be. Your impact in life won’t be based on its brevity or longevity, but the bold influence of your life on the lives of others.
By Kwabena Bomfeh Jnr., The Republican Nationalist
Kwabena Bomfeh Jnr.
The Republican Nationalist, Accra, October 2026.
