INSIGHT FOR TODAY 18TH SEPTEMBER 2024 DEVOTIONAL MESSAGE WRITTEN BY PASTOR CHUCK SWINDOLL
TOPIC: Appraising Your Life
SCRIPTURE: Ecclesiastes 12:6–7
IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE you took stock of where you are going, hasn’t it? And how about an evaluation of the kids? Or your marriage? Or your own future? You know what I mean: trimming off the fat of lazy thinking and taking a lean, hard look at your remaining years.
As I write, I’m now in my eighties. If Christ doesn’t return (and I don’t die in the meantime), I figure I’ll keep going until I’m at least one hundred! How old are you? How many years lie between now and when you turn sixty-five or seventy years of age? It’s about time you came to terms with your future, isn’t it?
If that doesn’t grab you, consider your family in the next decade. Cynthia and I feel it was only last week when our home resembled a cross between Grand Central Station, the Indianapolis 500, and the San Diego Zoo! That was long ago. We now find ourselves with ten grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. It’s amazing how quickly all that happened. As the old newsreel used to say, “Time marches on.”
Consider Solomon’s wise counsel:
Remember your Creator now while you are young, before the silver cord of life snaps and the golden bowl is broken. Don’t wait until the water jar is smashed at the spring and the pulley is broken at the well. For then the dust will return to the earth, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. – ECCLESIASTES 12:6–7
For what are you asking the Lord on behalf of your children and grandchildren? I challenge you to stop long enough to make an honest appraisal of your life. By the way, don’t just think about it . . . get alone and write down your thoughts, your dreams, your aspirations. Refuse to let tonight’s television programs or some insignificant activity interrupt this necessary discipline. If you put it off, you may lose the urgency you’re feeling right now.
Devotional content taken from Good Morning, Lord . . . Can We Talk? by Charles R. Swindoll. Copyright © 2018. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved. The full devotional can be purchased at tyndale.com or wherever books are sold.