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

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hide Not...

Over the centuries, the words have brought great comfort and encouragement.   The words are often used as a benediction or a blessing:   The Lord bless you and keep you: The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you: The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.   (Num 6:24-26)   What in the world is a countenance?  By definition, it is a person's face or facial expression. So if the Lord’s face shines upon us and if He lifts up His countenance upon us, what does all that mean? It means that He is giving us His attention.  But even more so, His face shining upon us gives us t he picture of a beaming face like that of a parent for their beloved child.  And the reference to Him lifting up His countenance points to God extending divine favor and peace to us. Sometimes we can appreciate things more by seeing opposites.  The opposite of a lifted face is a face that has fallen, perhaps because of sham...
Post a Comment
Read more

Can't Get No Satisfaction

One of the songs that were popular in my youth was not particularly upbeat or helpful but it probably did express some of the angst of my generation.  It was not one that particularly resonated with me but as I recently read the book of Haggai, it did come to mind, well, at least some of the lyrics did.  It was the Rolling Stones song with the lyrics “I can’t get no satisfaction”.  Take a look at the chorus of that bleak song:   I can't get no satisfaction; I can't get no satisfaction; Gonna try and I try and I try and I try; I can't get no - I can't get no –   Now take a look at Haggai 1:6 – “ You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” It sure sounds like the people of Judah couldn’t get any satisfaction with the things of life that normally should have brought some type of s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Outrun the What?

“Outrun the rays”!  It’s a phrase I noticed on a billboard.  I think it’s a public service type campaign.  The intent, I assume, is to get people out of the harmful rays of the sun that can cause things like skin cancer.  But you really can’t outrun the rays, they travel at about 186,282 miles per second! Yet the campaign has a certain appeal to it.   “Outrun” sounds a lot like a competition and maybe it gets the competitive juices going for some.   Yet, try as you may, you still can’t outrun the rays, but you can implement strategies to avoid them.   And most of those strategies have a simple foundational aspect to them; you avoid the rays by finding some type of covering. Strategies for covering up from the rays include being in shaded areas, putting on clothing that blocks the rays or putting on sun screen. While the sun’s rays can certainly cause significant physical harm and cover is essential to combat that, there are also areas of our live...
Post a Comment
Read more