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” – .. Remember him – before the silver cord is severed, and the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the well, and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind.

(Ecc 12.1,6&7, 13)

Praise the Lord!

I will extol the Lord with all my heart in the council of the upright and in the assembly. Great are the works of the Lord; they are pondered by all who delight in them. Glorious and majestic are his deeds, and his righteousness endures forever. He has caused his wonders to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and compassionate…. He provided redemption for his people; he ordained his covenant forever – holy and awesome is his name.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise.

(Ps 111.1-4,9&10)

I was sharing recently with a close friend of many years, a woman at my own age and stage of life. We have a few aches and pains, our husbands are nearing retirement, we have grandchildren and also the needs of elderly parents on our minds. We have years of church commitment behind us, across a variety of contexts, and a deep desire to go on in faithfulness and honouring the Lord in our later years. But we are tired of living in a national context of declining churches and growing indifference/hostility to faith; we have seen many initiatives come and go in our congregations – apparently bearing little if any fruit. We are tired of praying for straying and lost family members, and seeing no change in their lives. We are tired of raising our hopes only to have them dashed again and again – isn’t it wiser to avoid getting hopeful in the first place?

Well, no, that’s not what our scriptures teach us!

The author of Ecclesiastes could certainly identify with world-weariness, with the cynicism – deadly and insidious – which arises so readily in a life buffeted by the reality of a fallen and painful world, where joy and sorrow are continually intermixed, and as we age, it becomes normal to expect less and less, to guard ourselves against disappointment. It is very easy to say, with the Teacher of that book, that all is futile! But look how the book ends, with a passionate exhortation to the reader to consider another attitude, a different path which can lead to a different outcome and way of living.

We are called to ‘remember our Creator’, which by definition implies recalling that we are created – we are limited, and He is not; we are mortal, and He is not; He is worthy of praise and also of our awed and humble worship. A healthy fear of God is the basis of wisdom, because it is the recognition that we are not in control of our lives, and only by looking to and depending upon him can we have any hope. As followers of Jesus, those whom God has adopted into his family eternally and who live now with him, we have even more reason to depend upon this God! He has shown his love for us, once and for all, and he will never renege on that act of salvation. His compassion will not fail us, and his redemption of us is assured.

We know that we can gradually become physically very cold without realising it, so also we can gradually lose our spiritual warmth, and fall into what we call ‘realism’, when actually, we have become cynical about God, about his purposes and his power to keep his promises. If the enemy of our souls can get us into that condition, we become not only sad within ourselves, but a danger to other believers instead of a blessing to them!

I think there is a place for grieving when life has turned out less sweet than we had hoped; when church is harder and lonelier than we would like; when we aren’t seeing the answers to prayer we hoped for. But, if we are genuinely following Jesus, that involves moving onward, and therefore leaving behind the habits, thoughts, and experiences of the past. We are being invited every day to step into the next part of God’s plans for us, and while they may be different from our past life, and different than what we hoped for, yet we are invited to trust that the future can yet hold fruitfulness, joy and hope – right up to the day when he calls us home!

Heavenly Father, I pray against the creep of cynicism in my life, in my thinking and in my faith. I pray for your Spirit within to keep me tender hearted and expectant that your power and love are undiminished and you will lead me to new fields of service, and reasons to give thanks.

Help me to focus my reading, my praying and my whole life on following Jesus, releasing the past with thanksgiving, and looking to the next step in faith, because you are so gracious and compassionate and your will is to be glorified in me. You are my Creator, I am your creature and also your child, adopted into your family and given the family likeness – let this truth guard me from the cold, and burn within to keep me warm for you in the days ahead, for Jesus’ sake, Amen.