Live Long And...

Like many Americans, and many people across the world, I have come to my ripe age  through no fault of my own. Not that I have lived a wild life, but the uncertainties of life are numerous. In generations past if a person made it through childhood it was an accomplishment. The number of children born into a family, for instance, may have been as many as five, with only two, maybe three surviving to adulthood.

  "If a man beget a hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul be not filled with good, and moreover he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he:" Ecclesiastes 6:3

During a Bible lesson some twenty years ago the speaker admonished the audience that 'if you read just one chapter in Proverbs every day of the month, you will read the entire book of Proverbs twelve times in a year'. We took this to heart for our home-school Bible class that year. I wonder if there wouldn't be some benefit in choosing to read a shorter book, say Ecclesiastes, Colossians, or James several times a month, and the next month move to another short Bible book. Read that one several times the next month, etcetera. Nothing wrong with reading Proverbs twelve times, but there is  inspiration in many books we don't read as often.

In an age when suicide happens all too often, we need to revisit the scriptures. Through the ages many people have asked, what's it all about? What is life—and more important, what is my life? Indeed, Ecclesiastes asks and answers these same questions.

• If a man (person) lives a long life, but their life is not filled with good what benefit is it?
•  yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, and yet enjoy no good, do not all go to one place?  All the labor of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled. Ecclesiastes 6:6-7

Some people go to the ends of the earth, climb mountains, run races, preform charities, build businesses, in short they DO things in search of happiness and purpose.

Christians work the work of the Kingdom, not to be saved, but because they are saved. We should find the calling that God has for us, and work not to find happiness, but because we are happy. 

 "The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much; but the fullness of the rich will not suffer him to sleep."
(Ecclesiastes 5:12 ASV)

"Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it in your pleasures. ... Be subject therefore unto God; but resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ...Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. ...Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye doubleminded. ...Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall exalt you."
(James 4:3,7,8,10 ASV)

• don't ask for evil things, or things to use for evil
• look for God's will in all things
• Draw near unto God, and purify your heart
• Especially, Humble yourself to listen and do God's will

 "whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. What is your life? For ye are a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away."
(James 4:14 ASV)

Hallelujah! What a Savior!