Clarifying Your Mission In MidlifeSample

Futility—How do we use these short lives for lasting purposes?

For most people, a sunrise offers an inherent promise: It’s a brand new day. Similarly, a sunset happily ends our activities and signals a time to rest. But Qoheleth has no such optimism. To him, a sunrise signals another day in the salt mines. A sunset grimly signals encroaching death. Its very repetitiveness is oppressive: a life of lather, rinse, and repeat.

From Qoheleth’s perspective, work is no different. The tangible and intangible things we spent our lives building will likely vanish eventually, sometimes as quickly as a sandcastle melts under the force of a single wave.

And what, Qoheleth asks, is the point of living if everything—including us and everyone we know—is dying? Can our fleeting lives leave enduring legacies?

Fear God and keep his commandments—Qoheleth tells us that’s “the duty of all mankind” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). But that’s actually a paraphrase. The word duty isn’t in the original text but the word whole is. A literal translation would be, “This is the whole of man.”

This is it—the whole shooting match. There’s nothing more, nothing less.

Bono once said, “Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books. It’s a book about a character who wants to find out why he’s alive, why he was created. He tries knowledge. He tries wealth. He tries experience. He tries everything. You hurry to the end of the book to find out why, and it says, ‘Remember your Creator.’ In a way, it’s such a letdown. Yet it isn’t.”

That may be the way the conclusion feels to us as well. But tease out the beauty and simplicity of this calling. All you have to do is faithfully fit yourself into this reality.

This reminds me of another biblical king’s earthly vocation. “When David had served God’s purposes in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed” (Acts 13:36).

That’s not the most elegant summation of such a grand life, but it’s a valuable one. David served God in his day. Then he died. Then he decayed. Simple as that.

So as you go on from here, believe that your life counts, especially in the perspective beyond the sun. Serve God’s purposes in your generation, and don’t stop now just because life has grown a little humdrum or difficult. Live. Serve. Die. Decay.

Then rise forevermore.

Thank you for completing this plan! For more devotionals by HOPE International, visit www.hopeinternational.org.