You live in an unhappy age. In fact, it is the unhappiest age the world has ever seen. This is because happiness is a by-product of obedience to God (Prov. 29:18), and this time before the close of the age is the most disobedient in history. Misery—extreme unhappiness—has been the result.

Look at those around you. Study their faces, even their posture. Faces generally look long. Bodies slouch and drag in disinterest. Faces look blank, expressionless in extreme boredom. Yet, the average person has more things to do today than ever available to any other generation.

The cover article of this issue speaks about music, and it is a very important article. It describes the lifestyle of today’s musicians. At the next opportunity, examine the faces of various groups by looking at a variety of album/CD covers. It is unlikely that you will find even a single one of these modern icons wearing a happy look—a simple smile! Serious, even angry, looks are the order of the day. Never mind the bizarre dress and other generally repulsive aspects of these people. But their faces tell the greatest story. They lead miserable lives—and reflect as much.

Now look at the way people move, so many shuffling and dragging along without the brisk step of a person who knows where he is going—because he knows where he is and where he has been. The speed of one’s step reveals more than you might suppose.

Apart from disobedience to God, why else are so many unhappy today? The answer is simply that almost no one sees purpose in life. Very few people set goals, and even fewer still have any idea what kind of goals they should be setting. For most today, and this is surely true of almost all young people, the goal is to accumulate as many material goods as possible. Yet, Jesus taught, “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses” (Luke 12:15).

God’s young people are to be different than the millions of their peers. You need to be sure that your life reflects one that is filled with the things others lack, even though it may lack the physical things that the lives of others are filled with (I Tim. 6:6-8; Phil. 4:13).

Now for the point of this article: You will be an adult for most of your life, approximately from age 20 onward. This means that you are a teenager for about seven years—age 13 through 19 inclusively—or only about eight or nine percent of your life if you lived to your mid-80s. This is a very small percentage of the total time of your life—but it represents the time of perhaps the most danger to you. You must be very careful that you never forget this (but this is not the primary purpose of the article).

By every account, the teenage years are a truly extraordinary time of life, not comparable to any other time. You have enough maturity to enjoy the world around you, but without the heavy responsibility and obligations that will come with adulthood. In short, enjoy this time—because you are only young once!

While this does not mean that you are free of all obligation and responsibility from God’s perspective, He does instruct, “Rejoice, O young man [and woman], in your youth; and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes…Therefore remove sorrow from your heart…” (Ecc. 11:9-10).

What a wonderful thing to hear from your Creator. He wants you to “rejoice” and to enjoy “cheer” in your life, and to pursue the interesting things that attract you according to the “sight of your eyes.” He also turns the coin over and tells you to look inside and “remove sorrow”—something your school and neighborhood associates are not told to do and do not know how to do.

I repeat, God wants the young people who are walking in His way to be filled with joy—real and even supreme happiness. They should feel moments of exuberance and exhilaration in this unparalleled time of life. You could be an adult as much as ten times longer than you are a teenager (if you lived to be 90). Take advantage of this special time.

A personal story: My mother loved to describe me as a little boy to her friends with the words, “David is my child with a great capacity for enjoyment.” She would often say these words to me. And it was true.

I recall my very early years of life. Seemingly, I enjoyed everything I did. My mother reported that I was a happy baby almost from the womb. Almost every one of my baby pictures reflected this.

Here is the point: Suddenly, at about age 15, I became very, very serious. The change in my demeanor was so great that my mother would repeatedly ask, “Whatever happened to my smiling baby boy?” Her question used to bother me, and she would remind me of the story and my “change” until she died when I was in my early 40s.

This taught me a lesson about Ecclesiastes 11:9-10 that I have never forgotten. I wish I had known about this passage in my early teen years. It would have changed my outlook. The reason I grew serious is not important. The fact is I did—and if you are not careful, this most unhappy age will swallow your joy before you know it is gone.

Again, you are only young once! Enjoy this marvelous time. Look for and squeeze happiness from everywhere you can. Push sorrow away. But just remember that the seven teenage years will soon be over. This means you are young enough to be in danger of making foolish decisions that could ruin many decades of enjoyment to follow. So be careful while you are also being carefree. Do not make decisions in which a few seconds or minutes can destroy a lifetime.

Therefore, be sure that you remember the additional words found in Ecclesiastes 11:9-10: “But know you, that for all these things God will bring you into judgment…put away evil from your flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity [temporary]” (vs. 9-10).