Long, hot days of summer are made for one thing – baseball.
If you end the national anthem with, “Play ball!”, love belting “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” in the 7th inning stretch, or have lost your voice cheering after a walk-off home run, you understand. And with playoff season not too far away, the race to become World Series champions is on.
There’s no baseball in the Bible, but if anyone understood being a world champion, it was King Solomon. The richest, wisest man on earth, Solomon was a superstar – he had it all. It seemed like his life was just one home run after another:
Wealth? Bam! See ya…
Pleasure? Crack! It’s outta here…
Knowledge? Pow! It’s going… going… gone!
But when King Solomon looked back on his life, he knew the truth – he’d struck out in every way that mattered.
Culture will tell you life is about what people think of you. Or about what you have. Or about being happy. It’s easy to look at the superstars in our world and think, If I had everything they had, I would be happy.
But King Solomon did have everything they have – and more. But when he looked at it, he realized, “Vanity of vanities… it’s all worthless.”
And he’d spent his entire life chasing it.
At the end of his life, King Solomon surveyed all he had and had done and said:
Here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. (Ecclesiastes 12:13)
Having everything is really nothing – but having God is having it all.
In Ecclesiastes 12:1, Solomon cautions us from making his same error: “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come.”
“Start early,” he says. “Don’t wait to the bottom of the ninth to give your life to Jesus – do it in the top of the first! It will save you a lot of heartache and a lot of heartbreak. And you’ll have a lifetime to live for the Lord!”
No matter where you are in life, I urge you – start living for the Lord right now. Don’t keep swinging at bad pitches, wasting your time and energy on things that will never satisfy. Focus on Jesus first – in everything – and you’ll hear Him cheering you on all the way home.
