- He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. -
You know that fear you have that it’s all going to end one day in a big black ball of nothing?
You know that crazy hope you have that there’s no way that can possibly be true?
That’s what the last half of this verse speaks to.
It’s really a bizarre thought. You’ve never seen anything eternal in your life; everything you know gets old, dies, rusts, falls apart, etc.
Even when you try to imagine eternity, your thoughts get fuzzy. What would that even look like? How many wrinkles does a man have who has lived for 3 centuries?
Yet, you have the inclination. It’s something quite unlike the things you know. It reaches into the future, just like Buzz Lightyear.
It’s funny, how angry we get at God for our lives on Earth. How short and useless those tantrums must seem.
We are extremely concerned with questions like, “Why does God allow bad things to happen?” or “Why is there so much suffering in the world?”
In the light of eternity, do those questions make sense? Does less than a hundred years of sorrow mean anything in the light of billions of years to come?
The truth is, we don’t have a reference for that, and our lives our immediate – they demand our attention.
I think we don’t really believe it, quite honestly. I think maybe we do, for moments at a time, but truly fully believe? Most of us never act that way.
The good news about that? That’s not required for salvation. Maybe that’s why Jesus never demanded it.
Perhaps it’s also why He gave us so many commands yet told us never to forget about our future home.
We have an idea of eternity, though it’s foggy. It’s placed in our hearts to know it’s there, but God hasn’t revealed the whole plan to us.
Why?
Well sometimes when your explaining things to your children, it takes time.
You need them not to work with the full concept yet; they need to understand the fundamentals before they can handle the nuances.
You don’t throw a bat, glove, and helmet at a kid and start yelling at them for not heading to home plate.
No, you help them fit the glove on their hand, make sure they can close it, and then play catch.
Are they playing baseball? Hardly. Is that goal? Eventually.
Ask yourself, would you trust someone with infinity who cannot handle a mortal lifetime?
If you wouldn’t, why would God?
I think my favorite story in connection with this idea doesn’t seem to fit with it at all, at least on its face.
Moses when he is on Mount Sinai saw God’s glory. Not His full glory or His face, God just shows him his back.
The result? His face glows to the point the Israelites can’t even look at him.
What happened there?
The finite beheld a piece of the infinite.
God tells him had Moses seen His face, he would have died.
We’re not ready to behold eternity, yet our souls know it to be. Rest knowing God has paid the price to bring you into His glory.