“Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NLT).
King Solomon was the writer of Ecclesiastes. He observed the beauty of how God had assigned everything a season and how these things seemed to repeat over time. Yet, he also observed that God had put an eternal longing in man’s heart, so that he wanted to know and experience more than just what his season on earth allowed.
This “eternity” that God put in humanity’s heart makes us unique in creation. We long for that which will last. We long for ultimate meaning and purpose. We long for God.
Solomon found that everything “under the sun” was “vanity” (empty, meaningless). Why? Because we long for that which is beyond the sun. We long for the Eternal One. As Pascal has been quoted as saying, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.” We long for the Eternal One.
PRAYER: Dear Father, We long for You. We long to know You better and to be with You in that place where our longing is satisfied and our tears are wiped away. Until that time, fill us afresh with Your Spirit and strengthen us for the day. In Jesus’ name, amen.