June 1, 2007
What’s the Point?
READ: Ecclesiastes 12:6-14
Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all. —Ecclesiastes 12:13
Scientists once thought that the vertebrate with the shortest life-span was the turquoise killifish. This small fish lives in seasonal rain pools in equatorial Africa and must complete its life cycle in 12 weeks before the pools disappear.
But researchers from James Cook University in Australia have now found that the pygmy goby has an even shorter lifespan. It lives fast and dies young. This tiny fish lives in coral reefs for an average of 56 days. Its rapid reproductive cycle is designed to help it avoid extinction.
What’s the point of a life that goes so fast and ends so quickly? It’s a question asked by one of the wisest men who ever lived. In his later years, Solomon, the third king of Israel, wandered from God. He became spiritually disoriented and lost his sense of direction and purpose. He looked at all of his accomplishments and found them worthless. Until he remembered his God (12:13-14), he forgot that we live not merely for ourselves but for the honor of the One who made us to worship and enjoy Him forever.
Significance is not found in the number of our days, but in what our eternal God says about how we have used them
To use as best we can,
To live each moment in His will
According to His plan. —Sper
