“He Has Also Set Eternity In Their Hearts…”
Would you believe me if I told you that there is something inside of you that you can’t remove no matter how hard you try? You may be a free moral agent with choices to make and a future to pursue but there is one thing for sure that you have no control over whatsoever. You see, God made you in such a way that you are always going to be searching for or making some kind of effort to define the purpose of your existence.
The great and wise Solomon once said, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). There are three parts to this verse that are important to understand:
- God’s timing is perfect and He is going to work out things according to His own will and purpose on his own timetable. Since it is God’s working, it is beautiful and good and His will is going to be done in all things, whether we choose to be a part of it or not. If we have faith in Him, we will link ourselves with something that ultimately will be filled with the beauty that only heaven can create.
- God has made human beings such that they think about eternal things. The word “set” here means “put, place, bestow, employ…” among other things. God put something in all of us. That thing is “eternity” – and that word is defined as “the undefined and unsearchable future of forever.” We can’t help but ask ourselves, “What is perpetual existence and everlasting life all about?”
- There is not one person who can search out all of what God is doing or understand it. Paul expressed this same sentiment when he wrote, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” (Rom. 11:33).
Let’s get back to that second part – “He has also set eternity in their hearts.” This is a powerful thought. Solomon is recognizing that every human being has this same question they are trying to answer. It has to do with where we came from and where we are going. It has to do with why we are here. Ultimately it seeks to explain the very fact that we are alive. “Eternity” must have something to do with the why. It’s an understanding that there is a hole in every human soul that can only be filled with something that is not of the world in which we are living.
On Mars Hill, the apostle Paul addressed the philosophers and educated of Athens and proclaimed – “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:24-27).
God made us in such a way that we are looking for Him. People are involved in the search for that which satisfies. And they attempt to fill that hole with everything imaginable. Solomon himself admits in the book of Ecclesiastes that during his lifetime he did that very thing. But ultimately the only thing that will fill the emptiness we all have inside of us is God. It is not wealth or possessions or popularity or a human relationship or any other temporary thing. It has to be eternal. And the only true eternal thing or being that has no beginning or end is God.
How ironic, that the very thing we all seek is the simply the One who caused us to seek it in the first place. Our God is what, or better, whom we are seeking. The sooner we realize this the sooner we can get down to fulfilling our purpose.
“For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.” Philippians 2:13
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AUTHOR: Jeremiah Tatum
