08/23/2007
Ecclesiastes 3:9-11 (NIV)
What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
In the midst of Solomon’s musings, he makes a very interesting comment: “[God] has also set eternity in the hearts of men.”
I believe that it is this sense of eternity that makes young men feel invincible, and likewise makes the old man feel futile. When we are young and strong, it seems that all of life is laid out before us and we feel the potential of something greater than ourselves, and thus, we tend to ignore our mortality. When we age, we see all that we have done, and are doing; yet we are aware that our life will end. We thus wonder, what was it all for? If life and everything continues in eternity, what was our life for?
Ultimately, this makes us all feel a sense of something beyond ourselves. I believe this also drives us to philosophical and metaphysical ideas about our creator. “Only a fool says in his heart: ‘There is no god.’” Even evolutionists build an elaborate scenario in which mankind goes on forever. Hinduism teaches reincarnation where the individual never truly ceases to exist. Buddhism also has similar ideas, but the individual becomes part of the one-ness. Indeed, all religions contain some element of something beyond what we can readily understand, because God made us that way.
And to cap it all off, we are not capable of understanding what God has done.
This does not mean that we cannot understand God, for indeed Jesus came as the revelation of God to us all. “And the word [of God] became flesh and lived among men.” (John 1:14a) What we can know about God we can learn through Jesus. Jesus said “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him.” (John 17:7)
God made us with the insatiable desire to understand Him. Look to Jesus for the answers.
Jeff Justus
Cleff Publishing
www.cleffpublishing.com
©2007 Cleff Publishing, all rights reserved.
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