Contemplative Bible Reading

Ecclesiastes 12:5 (New Century Version)

You will fear high places
and will be afraid to go for a walk.
Your hair will become white like the flowers on an almond tree.
You will limp along like a grasshopper when you walk.
Your appetite will be gone.
Then you will go to your everlasting home,
and people will go to your funeral.

The Teacher, the writer of Ecclesiastes, is here writing about the marks of older age. The item near the bottom caught my attention:

You appetite will be gone.

This has occurred with several people I know who are in the late 70s and beyond. The sense of hunger is gone. They eat three meals a day, but from habit or discipline. They watch their weight, not to keep it from ballooning as many of us younger people do, but to ensure that they don’t wither.

Think about it – you are never hungry. You never desire food. And that becomes a health problem as you may often forget to eat.

The Teacher is lamenting the uselessness of life without God. We grow old; we lose out appetite, and we die. What’s the use? Well, without God, there is no use in this life on earth.