I had read through the Book of Ecclesiastes and came to Ecclesiastes 12:1 - a familiar text:
“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, I find no pleasure in them.”
I like to think I am still young but honesty places me well outside the category of “youth.” The idea in the word, “youth,” would send me down “Memory Lane”!
I recently met with a couple of friends from the ‘old days’. It was a time of reminiscing over good times we had and about the people we knew. They were our young days! We all start off life with everything before us and then comes the time when we must view life from the other end of the age spectrum. There are those reminders, which the doctor informs me is all part of the aging process. I told him once I didn’t like him saying that. OK, he said, so you re not as young as you used to be! When we are young we want to be “grown up”. When we are “grown up” we don’t want to grow old!
Of course, growing old depends on the perceptions of your age group. Teenagers can think anyone over twenty is old! Interestingly, “According to the European Social Survey,” reported in the Daily Mail last month (17-03-10) “Britons believe that old age begins at 58.” Researchers asked 40,000 people in 31 countries: When does youth end and old age begin? For the UK, the average response was that you stop being young at 35, and start being old at 58.” Those aged 15 to 24 thought that youth ended at just 28 and old age commenced at 54. People in their 80s were more generous. They regarded the final year of youth as 42, and the onset of old age as 67.
But for most of us, whatever our age or experience, life is still precious. The preacher, the late Jamie Buckingham in his book, THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE, (p.185) recalls a story his dad told him. He says,
“I remember my dad telling us kids about an old man back in Indiana named Purcell who worked for my grandfather in the grain elevator. Working in the grain elevator in the heat of summer is enough to make any man want to die.
One afternoon–after a particularly hot, dusty, sweaty, fly-stinging day in the grain bins–the old fellow went into a nearby stable to pray to die. Grandpaw Buckingham was working in the feedlot outside and heard him calling out to God.
`Dear Jesus, come quickly. Come and get old Purcell. It’s so hot, so miserable. I just can’t take it any longer. Come and take me home, sweet Jesus.’
Grandpaw took his shovel handle and thumped on the door. Loudly. There was a long silence and finally a frightened voice from within said, `Who’s there?’
`It’s the angel of the Lord, Purcell,’ Granpaw roared. `I’ve heard your prayer.’
There was an even longer silence, and finally a quivering voice answered, `Purcell ain’t here right now, but I’ll let him know you’ve been asking about him.’”
Whatever our age, or however difficult our experience, life is still precious. But we do notice changes as we get older. We physically can’t do some of the things we used to do! And what we can do we are now a lot slower doing them.
Then too we forget things more easily. We get out of the car to go back to the front door to check we have locked it. We are twenty miles up the road on our holiday break, and we ask, did we remember to turn the water off, or is the gas stove off, did we lock the back door? - and so on. Our memory isn’t as good as it used to be. Or perhaps it’s just me!
On one trip we had to phone up our neighbour to ask him to shut the front door for us. We were well on nearly 200 miles into our journey! We are fortunate to have good neighbours. But it wouldn’t have been the first time we have returned from being out to discover the front door wide open on our return! - it was not due to unwelcome intruders but because we had left the front door open! And we were much younger then!
But as we get older we tend to feel threatened by the speed of the changes taking place around us. Our modern age is developing so fast that we just can’t keep up with it all. We find ourselves saying things like, “This modern generation, I don’t know what the world is coming to!” (Speaking to those of us of ‘mature’ years of course!) When we look in the mirror we are forced to admit that the renewing process of the body cells no longer function as they used to. And then we begin to laugh at ourselves - to ease the thought of those encroaching sunset years. We say things like:
“I have finally got my head together; now my body is falling apart.”
“If God wanted me to touch my toes, he would have put them on my knees.”
“These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about the hereafter. I go somewhere to get something and then wonder what I’m here after.”
And it is so easy get worried over that. And then worry hastens the ageing process with self-pity. Doubts and feelings of uselessness can result in depression. And worrying could be a good way to guarantee a short life.
Jamie Buckingham said, in that same book, “I once had a friend who worried so much about losing his hair that he had a heart attack and died.” He said, “His worrying accomplished two things: He never did go bald–and he never had to be concerned about growing old!”
Charles Swindoll in his book, The Seasons of Life, reminds his readers that in the Bible it is the patriarchs who are among God’s select companions. Getting older should mean getting wiser and becoming more effective, without wasting the energy we don’t have anymore.
Swindoll points out that Abraham was far more effective for God when he grew old and became more mellow. And it was after Moses had turned 80 years of age that he was used with any measure of success!
Caleb was 85 years of age when he began to enjoy God’s best goals.
Samuel was old when God led him to establish the “school of the prophets.” It had a lasting influence for spirituality and godliness in the centuries that followed.
The Apostle John was quite elderly when he wrote the book of Revelation to his churches, which is so valuable to us in our day.
Growing old does have its pains. It has its difficulties, and heartaches. But there is a richness of life that doesn’t come from winning the national lottery, or being a success on shows like ‘Deal or no Deal’, or in “Who wants to be a Millionaire?”! It arises from the experiences of life that we didn’t have when we were younger!
“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, I find no pleasure in them.”
How much better it is for young people to remember they may look back on life in years to come, and see how much they have got out of life with God’s help and guidance than without it. There is only one life here. If we do it wrong the first time, there is no second time. God gave Samson more than he needed for this life. Samson only had one life to live, and he did it all wrong. There was no second go! Although God heard his prayer at the end and accepted Samson, how sad to have had to look back on a selfish and self-centered fruitless life!
This is what the author of this verse learned that you cannot live life over again. God had endowed Solomon with wealth and wisdom. But the whole book in which we find this verse is about the vanity of life when it is selfishly squandered. What we can now remember Solomon for, is that you do not get fulfillment or happiness out of life, if you leave God out of the picture.
It is so to find sympathy with Frank Sinatra’s, “I did it my way!” The message from Solomon is, “Don’t do it the way I did it!” It doesn’t work. Rather, “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, I find no pleasure in them.”
Solomon had wasted his precious years in this world in every kind of indulgence. He had been the richest king in the history of Israel, but all Solomon could do was look back in sadness and regret, and hope that his advice would be noted by the young of future generations. Solomon’s advice to the younger generation is, if you really want to feel good about life, in the future as well as now, then “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth.”
What about when you have gone beyond such advice? Perhaps Psalm 90:12 could be relevant: “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” With God’s grace, the older we get, the wiser we will get. In our maturity we can bring honour and glory to our Maker, and at the same time, experience a feeling of joy and well-being for ourselves, as well as bringing an atmosphere of peace and contentment to those near and dear to us. For all the harsh things said about the Bible, it does invite a development of character that can never be too early, or too late, to possess: Galatians 5:23 and 24 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” What is so wrong with that?
Theodore Carcich uses a poem by Adlai Albert Esteb, in his book, Principles to Ponder, in the chapter called, “Growing Old Gracefully.” It is called,” Stay Young:
Since only the body of man grows old,
The soul will stay young, if we wish we are told.
We’re young as our faith, as old as our doubt,
We’re young as our smile, as old as our pout.
We’re old as our hate, as old as our fears,
We cease to be young when love disappears.
Why should we grow bitter, sad or sour,
When only a smile could sweeten each hour?
The longer the fruit can grow on a tree,
The sweeter and better the fruit will be!
So we should be sweeter the longer we live–
Grow better, not bitter, and learn to forgive!
Be sure that you speak only kind words each day,
Then you will hear kind echoes as you are growing gray.
You’re young as the smile from your hopeful eyes,
You’re old on the day your courage dies.
So keep your lamps burning at eventide–
The close of life’s day should be glorified!
Life’s sunset can glow through your eyes and tongue–
With faith and with radiant Love–STAY YOUNG.
In Ecclesiastes 12:1 Solomon is saying that for those of us, who are still young, we will be rewarded now, as well as when you look back in years to come, if we “Remember our Creator,” and keep Him with us throughout our lives. For those of us who are older it is still not too late “to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
What about those in between? I am not really thinking of those of us in the middle-aged bracket - wherever we would like to place that. We do sometimes refer to those who don’t make it to their senior years as having “died before their time.” How many of us have not been touched or hurt by family or friends who we might refer to as having ‘died before their time’? I was 6, my brother 9 and my sister 13 when my father became a single parent. I’m sure he must have our mother had died before her time! People died on a large scale in the Haiti earthquake back in February. It was followed later by the one in Chili - people ‘dying before their time’.
Perhaps the Apostle Paul would fall into that category. His life was shortened by execution for his faith, and yet it has been said that Paul was used at his best during his last days in prison - writing messages of encouragement and comfort. Christians still cherish his prison letters today. Just think of the wonderful words of hope he left with us when he wrote in 2 Timothy 4:7-8: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day - and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”
And then we can think of that earlier statement of confidence Paul makes in 2 Timothy 1:12 where despite his imprisonment and impending demise he could say, “Yet I am not ashamed because I know in whom I have believed and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.” Those words were put to music by the evangelist Daniel Whittle, which is still a well loved hymn today:
“I know not why God’s wondrous love to me he has made known,
Nor why, Unworthy, Christ in love,
Redeemed for his own.”
In the Kingdom to come there will be no young or old, ‘All things will be made new’! (Revelation 21:1-5). There will only be eternity to enjoy with optimum health. An eternity we can begin to enjoy here in whatever the age spectrum we find ourselves if we follow the wise man’s counsel, “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
There is a day coming when there will be no such word as ‘age’! Time will give way to eternity - this mortal shall put on immortality! “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).
No more surgeries
No more hospitals
No more cemeteries.
“All things will be made new” (Revelation 21:1-5).
“Lord, teach me to number my days aright, that I may gain a heart of wisdom.”
