Why shou/ld we remember our Creator in our youth? ( Original post date 8/12/2018)
Ecclesiastes Chapter 12 in the Bible describes the “dark days” we will all face when we are old and our bodies get old and pleasures in life become “meaningless.” However, it begins with a verse to remember our Creator in our youth.”
The why of this opening verse is the subject of this post.
King Solomon
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”— (Ecclesiastes 12:1)
What’s My Point?
Ecclesiastes Chapter 12 verses are best comprehended by people who have become old and have “wised up” to recognize what was most important in their lives. Their bodies have become old and frail and they soon know it will be their time to meet their Creator.
Many may have spent their lives seeking earthly pleasures and now have come to realize all the earthly treasures they have gathered they will be meaningless when they die. Many will be afraid to die because they do not want to die or are wondering how they may be judged by their Creator for wasting their limited time and talents in their youth on earthly and perhaps immoral endeavors.
Yet there are also times in life when remembering your Creator in your youth will also give a person strength to endure the “dark days” during their youth and lives which Solomon describes in Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 verses of the good and bad times of life we often face in our lives.
For example, in a previous post titled, God Fixes Everything, a writer describes how she remembered her Creator of youth when she was faced with the realities of life as a nurse treating drug addicts and witnessing the hopelessness and effects upon their families, especially their children.
But what about all the children today who never get to meet their Creator in their youth because their parents never introduced them to their Creator? Or, their schools never taught their children about the love and wisdom of their Creator to give them strength when they have to make choices in their lives or face the realities of the dark days they may face throughout their lives?
In My Opinion
Reading the news this past week of the shootings and killings in Chicago, and the rise in suicides and drug deaths, and all the sad reporting in the news, I thought about how sad and foolish it is that the majority of our children may never be introduced to their Creator or the wisdom of Ecclesiastes because the USA secular schools are forbidden to teach the wisdom of King Solomon in their youth.
Parochial schools continue to close in Chicago and costs continue to rise and are unaffordable for most families to even have a choice to send their children to a parochial school.
School vouchers would be a wise decision for Chicago to help introduce the children in the killing zones to give them an opportunity to “remember their Creator” of their choice when they become old if they manage to live to become old.
This is my opinion, because I know it helped me when I grew up in Chicago in a “gangland war zone” and by the grace of God and the Dominican Order of Priests and Nuns, managed to live to my present age.
Yes, jobs, job training, better wages, two parents, private investment, better school buildings, parks for both children and dogs, jails, health facilities, drugs and guns reductions, pools and parks, free college scholarships, activists’ political marches, better more representative politicians or pundit news opinions, better police relationships, mutual trust, tolerances, to foster community trust, caring, etc. etc. may also help somewhat to temporarily fix social and economic problems facing the children and families in the war zone areas of Chicago.
However, when the children and families grow up and have to face the realities of life good and bad times, and when they get old and face the “dark times” remembering their Creator will help them more, in my opinion.
If Interested,
Read the Source Links below. If after reading and reflecting on the news we read about Chicago, can you honestly come up with any better suggestion to help change the future and the realities of life for the children and families now growing up in the “gangland war zones,” or anywhere in our nation or the world?
Regards and good will blogging.
Source Links
https://rudymartinka.com/2018/08/03/god-fixes-everything/
https://rudymartinka.com/2018/07/10/king-solomon-who-why-and-where-chicago-conundrum/
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/218.html
https://rudymartinka.com/2017/09/12/king-solomon-youth-is-the-best-time-in-life-to/
https://rudymartinka.com/2018/07/23/king-solomon-usa-greatest-fear/
Reblogged this on Citizen Tom and commented:
Here we have an excellent post. The subject is making the best use of our lives. Rudy, pointing to a passage from Ecclesiastes, advocates school choice.
What is the alternative? Consider my last post, the last in a series on whether God or government gives us our rights. When we are old — when we have finally begun to accept the temporary nature of our earthly existence — we may then start to contemplate the eternal questions we had before set aside. Then we will realize that if God gave us life He gave us everything, that if we have not been living with God foremost in our lives, we have been living in futility.
What our government-run schools teach children to do is to focus on their careers, a thing of this world we call advancement (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/advancement). When the old know the emptiness of such an idol, why do we insist upon foisting it upon our children?
If we want to succeed in this life, don’t we have to be ready for the next?
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Tom,
Thanks for the reblog and your excellent commentary.
It is really a sad that most of life’s problems result from absence of love and wisdom being taught when we are young and receptive to wise advise.
I agree with your comment that my post is a simple message. Your statement amplifies another of King Solomon’s observations of human folly.
This only have I found: God created mankind upright, but they have gone in search of many schemes.” (Ecclesiastes 7:29)
Why we mortals refuse to listen to advise and experience from history must surely be our Creators plan. Sadly, over history we humans keep moving like a pendulum to find and lose our faith and beliefs.
Sometimes we shine and other times we live in darkness such as times of war.
Perhaps our Creator wants to test us to seek out the best heroes of his creations. To do that, of course, might mean that by giving us free will, some will scheme to become villains, and others heroes and martyrs.
My brother’s saying upon his time of old age reflection was simple yet profound, in my opinion..
“We are the masters of our own disasters.”.
Thanks again for taking the time to read my post, your reblog, and kind and frank comments.
Regards and good will blogging.
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@scatterwisdom
Thanks for your post.
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This simple message is so needed. And why should we not be bold and simply say it— it is the truth. I refrain my mouth too often because I presuppose the hearers will reject it out of hand because they cannot see its relevance. But the truth is the truth! No point dancing around it.
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Thank you for your comment and affirmation the King Solomon verse is the truth.
Somethings cannot be skewed. For example, we are all destined to die whether we want to believe it or not.
Some may believe at that time, it is all over, when you die you die and that is all there is to know about life.
Others, believe the opposite, that life is a gift and death is to be celebrated and rewarded.
One thing is also certain, believing in God makes the good and bad times in life more enjoyable, peaceful,, happy, and interesting in my opinion.
Regards and good will blogging.
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