Solomon and Circadian rhythms

It is now almost 1AM. I fell asleep just as Jeopardy was finishing, and am now as wide awake as a nocturnal hunting animal. In another hour or so I will start to doze again. As my doctor warned me, night work would confuse my Circadian sleep rhythms. (Circadian rhythm sleep disorders are a family of sleep disorders affecting, among other things, the timing of sleep. People with circadian rhythm sleep disorders are unable to sleep and wake at the times required for normal work, school, and social needs. --Wikipedia) After two and a half years of working 3AM to noon or later, those rhythms are not just confused--they seem to be stuck in the night mode.

In thinking about this, a passage came to mind which bears considering as I approach the autumn of life. Yes, folks, I don't think of it as that, but that is what it is, and I discover daily the truth of the little sign Grandma Hirschy had in her living room which said "Ve get too soon oldt, und too late schmart."

The passage I am referring to is the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes. Even those of us who were "good" kids can look back at many episodes in our lives and say with the Preacher "Meaningless, meaningless! ... Everything is meaningless!"

But for the presence of God in my life in the person of the indwelling Holy Spirit, much of life would be without meaning, useless, an endlessly repetitive performance of tasks. But if I have learned anything in the last four years, it is that even in endless repetition, God can give us joy, and even pleasure, if we heed the words of the Preacher: "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, 'I find no pleasure in them'." (Eccl. 12:1, NIV)

If that dimension of life is not found, life truly does become, as verses 2 through 7 illustrate, an endless "organ recital" in which the only thing we can think of is what is going wrong with our bodies and how our members are slowly shutting down and leading us to the final resting place of our flesh--the grave.

Once we have learned the joy of keeping our Creator in mind as a practice of life, though, we can conclude with the Preacher: "Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil."

With all of this in mind, I can only ask: Why does it take me so long to learn such wonderful truths? Was it necessary for everything to start falling apart before I realized that what puts meaning into life is a life of constant "God sightings". His work is always there--but quite often our lack of positive response makes us blind to His presence and insensitive to His desires for us. My desire for the rest of my life is to be always alert (even if I don't sleep at the right times) to God's work in my life, and ready for another day of rejoicing in my walk with Him.