Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come. Then man goes to his eternal home and mourners go about the streets. (Ecclesiastes 12:1, 5, NIV 1984).
My Musings – “In the days of [my] youth” there weren’t many “days of trouble.” We were a lower middle-class blue-collar family, living paycheck to paycheck. But living in America, that did not mean they were real “days of trouble.” Days of privilege compared to many throughout the world. And unlike far too many who were just a few years older than me, I escaped the horrors of going to war in Vietnam. It was no longer our fight, if it ever was. I was also too young to really comprehend how three major assassinations would forever alter the fabric of the nation and steal its innocence.
But real “days of trouble” are ahead. And even if we go “to [our] eternal home” before they do come, now is the time to “remember [our] Creator.” For when they do come, it may be too late. And as we grow old the troubles of this world can harden us to the point that we love “darkness instead of light because [our] deeds [are] evil [along with] everyone who does evil [and] hates the light.” (John 3:19–20, NIV 1984).
Going “to [our] eternal home” before we “remember [our] Creator” is an ever-increasing reality the further beyond “the days of [our] youth” we go. Because “man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.” (Hebrews 9:27, NIV 1984). And death before remembering our Creator, without Christ as our Savior, brings an eternity full of “days of trouble.” Hell will be the “eternal home” of “mourners,” forever remembering and regretting a wasted youth.
My Advice – There once was a man who thought he had the convenience of considering his Creator at another time. His name was Felix. “As Paul discoursed on righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, ‘That’s enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.'” (Acts 24:25, NIV 1984). We do not know if Felix ever found time to “remember [his] Creator” or convenient to consider “his eternal home” before God sent for him and he faced his judgment.
Many “Felix’s” have come and gone since the days of Paul. Some to one “eternal home” and some to another. But what about you? What do you want your “eternal home” to be? Perhaps it’s time to “remember your Creator.” Don’t allow “the days of trouble [to] come” before you do. You will never find a more convenient time than right now. For “days of trouble” and “[facing] judgment” usually come at inconvenient times.
The Brew Is A Musing 