Skip to main content

He Sets Eternity In Our Hearts

It is an often quoted line and for lots of good reasons.  Among other things, it wonderfully exudes hope!  Just let the words fall on you like gentle rain:  “He has made everything beautiful in its time.”

This line in Ecclesiastes 3:11 points to God’s orchestration of human events in their most appropriate time and place.  In the book of Acts, we find additional descriptions of how He orchestrates human events:  “From one man He made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.”  (Acts 17:26)

Going back to Ecclesiastes, there is a crucial thought in the remainder of the verse that is often glossed over:  “He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

And going back to Acts, we get an additional look at God’s purpose in orchestrating human events:  “God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us.  ‘For in Him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring’” (Acts 17:27-28).

In setting eternity in our hearts and orchestrating things, God is working to get us to seek Him.  In fact, in another passage, He declares this great promise:  “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”  (Jer 29:13).

We may not be able to fathom everything that God has done from beginning to end but we can know that He purposefully set eternity in our hearts and orchestrates human events that we might seek Him and reach out for Him and find Him. 

And when we find Him, we also find the source of our very being.

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Excel Still More!

To excel, according to some of the meanings from a few dictionaries, is to surpass others, do extremely well, outdo, do something better than anyone else. In 1 Thessalonians 4:1, we find the phrase “excel still more”.   It prompts the question:  if we are already doing something better than anyone else, why would we be encouraged to do even more? Perhaps it would be helpful to see the wording that other translations use for “excel still more” to see why we would be encouraged to do so.  Here is a sampling: • abound more and more • to keep doing so more and more • but try even harder • live that way more and more. • that you progress even more. • that you increase more and more in how you ought to walk Maybe it would also be helpful to see some other verses where the word “excel” is used: “Now in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which when translated means Dorcas); this woman was excelling in acts of kindness and charity which she did habitually.”...

Value Proposition

Value proposition:  it’s a marketing statement that summarizes why a consumer should buy a product or use a service.  It should clearly and concisely communicate what customers can gain from selecting a particular brand over that of its competitors. In a value proposition, you don’t want your product to be viewed as being worth less than what your competitors offer.   But even worse, in a bit of a quirk of how letters and spaces can fall, if you take out the space between “worth” and “less”, you get “worthless”, which means something of no value.   If that word is used in conjunction with how your product is viewed by customers, it’s a word that will likely kill your brand. In the book of Philippians, the Apostle Paul, in a sense, communicated some value propositions. In chapter three, he starts off with describing the value of some things that many considered as extremely valuable in that day and age.   They had to do with status and achievement in the reli...

New Year Trash or Treasure?

You probably know the old saying:  “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.  I am not going to try to prove or disprove it, just look at it from a different angle. Cheryl and I were recently walking on a beach in Florida .  A man was walking along with a bag and was picking up trash and putting it in the bag.  Was he picking up things of value? We also saw a different man walking along the same beach with a metal detector.  He would swing it back and forth and would occasionally stop and dig in the sand.  Was he looking for things of value? Both were intent.  Both were focused.  Both were diligent. I’m guessing that the one picking up trash was not looking for things of value.  I’m also guessing that, by picking up trash, he was valuing the beauty of the beach and didn’t want the trash to mar it.  The one with the metal detector, I’m guessing that he was not looking for metallic items of trash but was looking for...