Text: Ecclesiastes 1, Luke 12:16-21, 2 Timothy 1:6
I. The Crime Scene That Is Your Calendar
There is a peculiar moment in life when you wake up and realize that time has been robbing you blind.
It’s subtle. It doesn’t kick in the door, gun drawn, demanding your best years in one fell swoop. No, time is far more sophisticated than that. It’s a con artist, a white-collar thief, siphoning off the days in small, imperceptible transactions. One compromise here. One postponed dream there. One "I’ll get to it later" stacked on top of another, until one day you look up and realize—
You’re 40 from the sod.
Now, that phrase? It’s a bit poetic. Forty years from the grave. Maybe you’re a little younger, maybe older, but the sentiment is the same: you are closer to death than you think, and what do you have to show for it?
A mortgage? A job title? A LinkedIn profile that no one actually reads?
Oh, it’s all very respectable. Responsible.
But what about the spark? What about the fire? What about the thing you used to believe in, the thing that mattered?
The dreams, the convictions, the calling—where did they go?
And the most haunting question of all: Did you trade them away?
II. A Man and His Bigger Barns
There’s a story in Luke 12 about a man who had done well for himself. A self-made success. The kind of guy who would have had a LinkedIn profile filled with buzzwords like “visionary” and “synergistic leadership”.
One year, his harvest was so good that he ran out of storage space. So, he made a decision: "I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll sit back, eat, drink, and enjoy life."
You know, finally relax. Finally enjoy what he worked so hard to build.
Except—he dies that very night.
And God, with the sort of bluntness that cuts straight through the noise, calls him a fool.
Not because he was successful. Not because he had plans. But because he spent his life building the wrong kind of wealth. Because he thought he had time.
But time was not his to keep.
III. The Slow Death of Conviction
Of course, it doesn’t happen all at once.
Nobody wakes up one morning and says, “You know what? I think today I’ll kill every ideal I ever stood for.”
No. It happens quietly.
First, you get busy. Life gets complicated. You’ve got responsibilities now. People who depend on you. The wild ambitions of your younger self? They weren’t practical anyway.
So, you start making compromises. Not big ones. Just little trade-offs, here and there.
Then one day, you look in the mirror, and the fire that used to burn so hot is nothing more than a faint, flickering ember.
The dreamer? Gone.
The firebrand? Replaced by a man who hits snooze on his own life.
The calling? Sold off for comfort.
It’s tragic, really. But tragedy is rarely loud. More often, it looks like a man slowly dulling himself into irrelevance.
IV. The Grave in Your Pocket
The Preacher in Ecclesiastes knew something about this. The man had it all—wisdom, wealth, pleasure, power. And yet, he looked at his life and summed it all up in one word:
"Hebel."
Meaningless. A vapor. A chasing after the wind.
You work, you build, you amass wealth, you climb ladders—only to leave it all behind for someone else to enjoy (or squander).
And yet, we keep doing it.
Because somewhere along the way, we bought the lie that says: Success will satisfy you.
And if it doesn’t? Well, you just need a little more of it.
So, we build our bigger barns, climb our corporate ladders, measure our worth by the things we own, and ignore the quiet voice in the background whispering:
"Is this it?"
V. Digging Your Way Back Out
Here’s the thing: You’re not dead yet.
And that means you have a choice.
In 2 Timothy 1:6, Paul tells Timothy: "Fan into flame the gift of God which is in you."
Fan it. Stoke it. Dig it out from under the years of dust and neglect.
Because the fire isn’t gone—it’s just buried.
You’ve still got breath in your lungs, which means you still have time to make your life count.
You can still:
- Get up from the desk, shake the dust off, and chase what actually matters.
- Rekindle your faith.
- Take back the dreams you buried in the name of practicality.
- Live a life that will matter when you’re six feet under and the only thing left of you is the impact you made on others.
Because here’s the truth:
- God never called you to be comfortable.
- He never asked you to settle.
- He never designed you for mediocrity.
And yet, so many of us are living like He did.
VI. Run Fast Enough, You Might Not Be Gone
The good news?
You’re not 40 feet under yet. Just 40 from it. And that means there’s time.
Time to get up. Time to change course. Time to dig out the fire before you become another tragic soul who lived for paychecks and pensions instead of purpose.
But don’t wait too long.
Because that calendar? It’s still bleeding out. The thief is still working. And time, well—
It never leaves survivors.
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