Remember God – While You Still Can.

“Don’t let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. Honor him in your youth before you grow old and no longer enjoy living.” ­– Ecclesiastes 12:1 NLT

It was George Bernard Shaw who said, “Youth is wasted on the young.” They have all the energy, enthusiasm, mental capacity, and vigor for life. They have years ahead of them to experience life in all its fullness. And for those of us whose hair is turning gray or simply turning loose, we find ourselves jealous of the young. We sometimes wish we were young again. Some of us spend way too much time trying to appear young in a vain attempt to hang on to something that is no longer there. Solomon seemed to hate the idea of getting older. It was a topic he discussed at length in his writings in Ecclesiastes. He knew his days were numbered. He was experiencing the effects of old age. His memory was not what it once was and he no longer had the energy he once had. He probably found himself exhausted, both mentally and physically, at the end of the day. And yet he probably found himself surrounded by young people. After all, he had 700 wives and 300 concubines, so there is no telling how many kids he had running around the palace.

So Solomon had a lot to say to young people. The Proverbs are full of messages to the young, and in the closing chapter of Ecclesiastes we read more admonitions and warnings from the pen of Solomon to youth. He writes from the perspective of one who has seen the years fly by and is now looking back in retrospect. He encourages the young to remember God while they can. Old age can bring diminished capacities of all kinds. Memory loss, decreased attention span, poor vision, and weakened strength are just a few of the things that young people have to look forward to. So while they are young, Solomon warns, they need to remember God. They need to use their energy, enthusiasm, strength, and mental capacity to think about the One who made them. “Yes, remember your Creator now while you are young, before the silver cord of life snaps and the golden bowl is broken. Don’t wait until the water jar is smashed at the spring and the pulley is broken at the well” (Ecclesiastes 12:6 NLT). Solomon uses poetic language to portray the fragility of life and the inevitable end we all face.

But Solomon is not all doom and gloom. He encourages the young to enjoy life. To take advantage of the years they have ahead of them. “Young man, it’s wonderful to be young! Enjoy every minute of it. Do everything you want to do; take it all in. But remember that you must give an account to God for everything you do. So banish grief and pain, but remember that youth, with a whole life before it, still faces the threat of meaninglessness” (Ecclesiastes 11:9-10 NLT). Solomon teaches balance. Enjoy life, but remember that all life ends in death. And none of us know when that time will come. Only God does. Youth is only wasted on the young if they refuse to live with wisdom and in the fear of God. That really seems to be Solomon’s point. The lessons of Proverbs and the book of Ecclesiastes are really for the young. They have the time to put them into practice and make their lives count. These are the same messages we need to convey to the youth of our day. Sometimes we think they can’t handle it. We treat them as if they are too young and too immature to deal with deeper truth. But Solomon wanted to reach the young while they were young. He wanted them to make the most of their lives “under the sun.” He wanted them to enjoy their lives, but to do so with a certain degree of soberness and seriousness. He concludes his writings with the following thought: “Here is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is the duty of every person. God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 NLT). Encouraging our young people to live their lives with God as the focus is the duty of us all. But we need to do more than talk about it. We need to model it. Life is to be enjoyed – with God at the center of it. Life is to be lived to the full – with God at the center of it. Life is to be rich and rewarding – with God at the center of it. Otherwise, if God is left out of the equation – life becomes meaningless.

Father, give me an increased desire to share these thoughts with the youth in my life – including my own kids. But more than anything else, help me to live out the truths found in this book in my own life. Show me how to model a life of wisdom and the fear of God. I want to increasingly make You the center of all that I do – so that my life has meaning. Amen

Ken Miller
Grow Pastor & Minister to Men
kenm@christchapelbc.org





His Ways Are Not Our Ways.

“I saw every work of God, I concluded that man cannot discover the work which has been done under the sun. Even though man should seek laboriously, he will not discover ; and though the wise man should say, ‘I know,’ he cannot discover.” ­– Ecclesiastes 8:17 NASB

There was a limit to Solomon’s wisdom. He was extremely wise, but he didn’t know everything. Solomon was still a man who found himself limited in his understanding. He could not understand the inner workings of God’s divine plan. He couldn’t comprehend the confusing nature of life on this world. Why do the wicked seem to prosper and the righteous seem to suffer? We don’t know. We can’t answer those kinds of questions. But in his pursuit to know Solomon asks. He wants answers. And because he can’t find them, it can lead to the conclusion that life is futile, meaningless and like chasing the wind. Solomon asks rhetorically and with a hint of frustration, “If no one knows what will happen, who can tell him when it will happen?” (Ecclesiastes 8:7 NASB). We are limited. We don’t know what is going to happen. We don’t know when we are going to die. We don’t know how relationships are going to turn out. We don’t know if adversity or prosperity is our lot. A life of righteousness can’t guarantee one or prevent the other. Only God knows. And His ways are inscrutable, unknowable, unsearchable. There are things going on here “under the sun” that we will never understand this side of eternity. We have a limited perspective. We have limited knowledge. We are finite creatures. But our God is infinite in power, wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. He is in control. He has a plan. And He doesn’t always let us in on it.

Paul understood this. “Oh, what a wonderful God we have! How great are his riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his methods! For who can know what the Lord is thinking? Who knows enough to be his counselor? And who could ever give him so much that he would have to pay it back? For everything comes from him; everything exists by his power and is intended for his glory. To him be glory evermore. Amen” (Romans 11:33-36 NLT).  God reminded the prophet Isaiah of the same thing. “‘My thoughts are completely different from yours,’ says the LORD. ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts'” (Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT).

So what should be our reaction to the fact that God’s ways are greater than we can ever understand? How do we respond when we finally realize that not everything on this earth is cut and dried, with the wicked always losing and the righteous always winning? Well, on the one hand, we could resign ourselves to a life of futility and determine to make the most out of this mess. That seems to be what Solomon did. He adopted the “eat, drink and be merry” philosophy – a life of hedonism. We could take a more restrained approach and simply tell ourselves to enjoy what you’ve got and not worry about the rest. “Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life which He has given to you under the sun ; for this is your reward in life and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 9:9 NLT). Or we could learn to rest in the fact that God’s ways, while impossible for us to know or understand, are always trustworthy and right. He knows what He is doing. We can learn to accept adversity or prosperity as both potential options in God’s divine plan for our lives.

In his “Notes on Ecclesiastes,” Dr. Thomas L. Constable says, “We cannot understand why God uses adversity and prosperity as He does. A man or woman of faith trusts God nonetheless (Romans 8:28). Therefore we should enjoy the times of prosperity and remember in the times of adversity that God is in control.” Warren Wiersbe puts it this way, “God balances our lives by giving us enough blessings to keep us happy and enough burdens to keep us humble.” In the end, we need to trust that He knows what He is doing. Life “under the sun” can be confusing, frustrating, and at times, demotivating. It doesn’t always make sense. It isn’t always fun. There are things that happen that we can’t understand or make sense of. But if we maintain a God-focused perspective and remember to keep Him as part of our equation, it can help us understand that trust sometimes has to take precedence over knowing. Faith has to stand in the place of understanding.

Father, what a life this can be at times. So many things happen even in a given day that confuse and confound us. And if we maintain a purely horizontal perspective it can become debilitating and frustrating. But Your ways are greater than my ways. Your knowledge is beyond anything I can begin to understand. Help me learn to trust You, even when things don’t seem to be going the way I think they should. Don’t let me try and measure Your goodness based solely on circumstances. Don’t let me measure reality based solely on what I see going on around me. You have a greater plan. Amen

Ken Miller
Grow Pastor & Minister to Men
kenm@christchapelbc.org





It’s All About Perspective.

“Then I observed that most people are motivated to success by their envy of their neighbors. But this, too, is meaningless, like chasing the wind.” ­– Ecclesiastes 4:4 NLT

Remember, the real theme of the book of Ecclesiastes seems to be about having  a God-centered worldview than a me-focused one. It is about learning to see life from God’s perspective, not our own. We are limited in what we can see. We don’t know what God is up to or what He has planned. So when we try to live our lives focused only on the horizontal, we end up with a warped perspective, and it skews just about everything we do. For instance, even our motivation to succeed in life is based on envy and jealousy. We take a look around us and see what others have achieved and the lifestyle their achievements have made possible, and we decide to work harder so that we can enjoy the same things. In the end, this kind of motivation proves futile and meaningless. It’s a vapor that fades away. Why? Because our perspective is wrong. Solomon goes on to warn us,  “Those who love money will never have enough. How absurd to think that wealth brings true happiness! The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it. So what is the advantage of wealth — except perhaps to watch it run through your fingers! People who work hard sleep well, whether they eat little or much. But the rich are always worrying and seldom get a good night’s sleep. There is another serious problem I have seen in the world. Riches are sometimes hoarded to the harm of the saver, or they are put into risky investments that turn sour, and everything is lost. In the end, there is nothing left to pass on to one’s children. People who live only for wealth come to the end of their lives as naked and empty-handed as on the day they were born” (Ecclesiastes 5:10-15 NLT). So is Solomon saying hard work and wealth are wrong? No, he was a very wealthy man who worked hard at being the king of Israel. But he had learned that his wealth and hard work didn’t bring him joy and fulfillment. When he made those things his focus and demanded that they meet his needs, he discovered that they could never deliver.

But with a slight change in perspective, things can take on a different light. “Even so, I have noticed one thing, at least, that is good. It is good for people to eat well, drink a good glass of wine, and enjoy their work — whatever they do under the sun — for however long God lets them live. And it is a good thing to receive wealth from God and the good health to enjoy it. To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life — that is indeed a gift from God. People who do this rarely look with sorrow on the past, for God has given them reasons for joy” (Ecclesiastes 5:18-20 NLT). The ability to work is a gift from God. Any wealth I gain from working is a gift from God. Any pleasures that my hard work afford me are a gift from God. The food I eat, the home I live in, the friends I have, are all gifts from God. To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life – that is indeed a gift from God. How many of us work, but rarely enjoy it? How often do we complain about how hard we work and how little time we have to relax and enjoy the benefits of our labor? When we sit down and eat a meal, we probably don’t stop and think about the fact that the food we are eating was made possible by our hard work. We don’t make that connection. We don’t savor the moment. If we lived in an agrarian culture where we labored all day to plant, tend, and harvest the food we eat, we would probably more readily enjoy the consumption of the fruit of our labors. God used our labor along with His creative power to produce the food we are eating. It is a gift from Him.

I love Solomon’s advice in chapter six: “Enjoy what you have rather than desiring what you don’t have. Just dreaming about nice things is meaningless; it is like chasing the wind” (Ecclesiastes 6:9 NLT). One of the curses of this world is our constant dissatisfaction and desire for more. We are in a constant pursuit for the next thing. The next job, the next relationship, the next new technological toy, the next great book, the next new diet, the next great vacation spot, the next …  And when we get that next new thing, we rarely sit back and enjoy it, because we are immediately distracted by something else we don’t have. So Solomon says, “Enjoy what you have!” Savor the moment. Enjoy the meal you’re eating, the friendships you have, the moment you’re in, the home you’re living in, the health you’re enjoying. Remember that everything is a gift from God. The next new thing will never satisfy, if the old thing never did. Only God can bring satisfaction. Keep your eyes focused on Him.

Father, what a temptation it is to keep looking for more and never enjoy what we already have. I spend so much time thinking about what I don’t have instead of enjoying what I do have. Help me to rest in You and be satisfied with what You provide. The constant quest for more is not only tiring, it is ultimately unfulfilling. It can’t deliver. Thank You for all You have already given me. Help me learn to enjoy every moment of life as a gift from You. Amen

Ken Miller
Grow Pastor & Minister to Men
kenm@christchapelbc.org





Chasing the Wind.

“I, the Teacher, was king of Israel, and I lived in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to search for understanding and to explore by wisdom everything being done in the world. I soon discovered that God has dealt a tragic existence to the human race. Everything under the sun is meaningless, like chasing the wind.” ­– Ecclesiastes 1:12-14 NLT

Chasing the wind. Futility. Vanity. Meaninglessness. These are just a few of the words the wise man Solomon uses to describe life. At first glance, you would think these are surprising words coming from the pen of a man who seemingly had it all – health, wealth, wisdom, success, fame, and the respect and admiration of men near and far. But Solomon was human. He may have been rich, but he was still susceptible to the conditions that plague all mankind – fear of man, the desire for more, discontentment, dissatisfaction, jealousy, and the ever-present reality of sin. Solomon didn’t live in a vacuum. He was surrounded by individuals who tested and tried him, sought to defeat him, played up to him just to get something out of him, lived off of him, and revealed the worst about him. In other words, Solomon lived in a fallen world. He may have been king of the people of God, but his life was not that much different than yours or mine. And when he looked at life from his own human vantage point, things could begin to look dim indeed. He could become disappointed and disillusioned.

But the book of Ecclesiastes is really designed to give the reader a God-centered perspective. It shows the futility of life when viewed from the vantage point of self. If we view life from our limited perspective, we will constantly find ourselves in a state of confusion. This life does not make sense. Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. We can work hard all our lives and end up with nothing to show for it in the end. Life is not always fair. Justice doesn’t always seem to win out in the end. The unjust do not always seem to get their just desserts. In fact, many of the most wicked in this world seem to get away with murder – literally. Evil men rise to power and grow wealthy as they abuse and exploit their own people. Corrupt corporate executives get filthy rich while their investors lose everything. Injustice and inequity are everywhere.

But one of the phrases Solomon uses over and over again is “under the sun.” He is basically referring to life on the planet earth. It refers to a temporal mindset that can easily focus on the horizontal and leave out the vertical. Rather than living life with a God-centered worldview, we become fixated on a self-centered, me-focused worldview. It becomes life as I see it – limited, myopic, and incapable of seeing the bigger picture. One of the recurring themes of Ecclesiastes seems to be that life without God lacks real substance. There is no real value or permanence to it all. It’s like a vapor or fog that is here one minute, then gone the other. It’s transitory and futile. Solomon had all that life had to offer. But he seemed to know that all the wealth in the world was going to satisfy him in the end. You can’t take it with you. And you could lose it all in the blink of an eye. Years of hard work and labor could be easily squandered, stolen, or wind up never delivering what you thought they would. It’s the house that’s never clean. The yard that continues to need mowing. The bills that are never finished being paid. The pain that never goes away. The hurt that never seems to get healed.

Solomon put it this way: ” …as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless. It was like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere” (Ecclesiastes 2:11 NLT). But in the midst of all the doom and gloom, there is good news. God is in control. He has a bigger and much larger perspective. He views life from a better vantage point. Solomon says, “God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NLT). We can’t see what God can see. We don’t know what He knows. We aren’t privy to His plans. He doesn’t consult or seek our approval for His actions. For Solomon it was a simple as, “I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God’s purpose in this is that people should fear him” (Ecclesiastes 3:14 NLT).

Life is like chasing the wind, but only if you choose to ignore God’s bigger plan. When we leave Him out of the equation, nothing adds up. It doesn’t make sense. Nothing works. Nothing. No amount of money can make us happy. Nothing we can purchase or own can fulfill us. Nothing we eat or drink can fully satisfy us. But God can. It is a life lived without a God-centered perspective that ends up being like chasing the wind. But when we keep God at the focus of life and His will as the motivation for our obedience, life becomes meaning-full. It becomes rich, complete, fulfilling, satisfying, and worth living.

Father, help me to keep You at the center of my thoughts. Give me a growing You-centeredness instead of a me-centeredness. Open my eyes to Your divine perspective. Help me see life from Your higher vantage point instead of my earth-bound one. You are in control. You have a plan. Never let me forget that. Amen

Ken Miller
Grow Pastor & Minister to Men
kenm@christchapelbc.org