"Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we will die."  We've all probably heard this phrase.  It's a paean of cheery abandon, an ode to doing what seems best and good for the moment.  And why not?  We're all going to die, anyway.
      This of course is true.  We will all one day die, and, for most of us, we rarely know the precise time at which this will happen.  It could be today, it could be tomorrow, it could be fifty years from now.  But it will happen.  Death is inevitable.
     Where does this leave us?  Should we really do everything with abandon, fatalistic abandon, believing that what we do doesn't matter, anyway?  In a way, yes:  in the big picture, really, what does matter?  On the other hand, consider this:  if nothing matters, why do we even bother living?  If nothing we do really matters, we really do not have, if we are totally honest with ourselves, any reason to be here.  We should end everything right now.
     The writer of Ecclesiastes (in the Hebrew Bible) thought about this a lot.  Towards the end of his ruminations (chapter 12:1), he made this observation, "Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, 'I have no delight in them.'"  What does he mean?  We see a clue in the two verses immediately before it, when he remarks that, "Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood.  And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes.  Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things."
     What the writer seems to be saying is that it is good for us to enjoy life, to delight in existence, to seek out the experiences that work best for us (he says as much in chapter 9, too).  However, and this is a BIG however, he also tells us that anything we do, we do not do in a vacuum.  We are not random beings on a random planet.  No, indeed.  We must remember (and be happy) that we are creations of a purposeful and loving God.  We need to remember that, yes, we may eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we could die, but even more that we eat, drink, and make merry in the compass of a world that has been created with intentionality and purpose by a meaningful and intentional God.  Life is bigger than us.  It is eternal.  Not only does what we do in this life matter now, it matters for eternity.  It is much bigger, much bigger than simply the "moment" before us.
     So, as the writer encourages us, enjoy life.  Enjoy its fruits, enjoy its wonders.  Enjoy friends, enjoy good times.  But remember this, and be hopeful:  there is a God infusing everything we do with meaning and marvel far beyond anything we can conceive or imagine.  We and our actions are vastly real, more real than we may think.  They're the work of God.
     In this we can rejoice.  Though we may die tomorrow, squarely (and perhaps unexpectedly) in the midst of our various pursuits, we will not go without meaning.  Our actions will not be done and effected without point.
     We live in the love of an eternal God.