Life's Enigmas - Pt 7

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”. (Ecclesiastes 12:1 ESV).

The third and last practical suggestion for developing joy in our lives is found in our reading today: Remember your creator. There is no higher way to maintain our joy than to remember our Creator. This is the Preacher’s way of reminding us that God is not someone who only created in the past but is now distant and separated; he is right now making, right now upholding all things by the word of his power, moment by moment by moment. If he stops speaking, you and I stop existing. We have a “God who makes everything.” And the Preacher meant, “Everything.” Earlier in the seventh chapter the writer said, “Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.” (Ecclesiastes 7:14-15). We are ignorant; we are small. And God is in charge. His purposes are not being thwarted through your financial setback. He was on the throne before the cancer struck, and he is on the throne now. And if all this power that we cannot contain and if all this power that we cannot explain is nevertheless working for us, we need not fear those who can only kill the body but cannot kill the soul. We need not falter in our faith when we fail an exam. For greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world. He is stronger; he is higher, and because of this we have hope. The fear of God leads to the approval of God, and by this our Creator becomes also our Shepherd, who is the great protector and the great provider. When life’s enigmas rise so that it feels like we are just herding cats, remember your Creator. Remember that all authority in heaven and on earth was given to the one by whom all things exist, things “in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him” (cf. Colossians 1:16). And, remember that this one who is working for his glory loves you and that “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (cf. Romans 8:38-39). That produces the release from fear and anxiety which in turn gives us joy and peace. Isn’t it time for you to start practicing these things in your life.