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The last couple of weeks have been extremely busy.  I’ve barely even had time to think about blogging.  And I don’t expect that situation to improve much until after the first of the year.

At some point the other day (I’m not sure how or why), my thoughts turned from the busyness of life to its brevity.  Maybe it was the connection between how we spend our time, and how little time we really have to spend.  I often wonder if I’m making the best use of my time.  Or, as the last line of an old poem goes, “Only one life,’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.”

Then, right on the heels of thinking about life’s brevity, these poignant lines from the book of Ecclesiastes came to mind:

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dimmed, and the doors on the street are shut—when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low—they are afraid also of what is high, and terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails, because man is going to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets—before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Soon (for all of us), the pitcher will be shattered at the fountain and the spirit will return to the God who gave it.  I don’t want to get so caught up in the busyness of life that I lose sight of its brevity.