Portion #10
New International Version
Ecclesiastes 3:11 – “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 the beginning to the end.”
The moon was full last night casting long slender shadows through the living room as I turned out the lights before heading upstairs to bed. For one moment, I paused and allowed a thought to impede my progress toward my pillow. “Man, life is big.” That thought followed me up the stairs and pestered me as I brushed my teeth. Something about the luminous nature of that orb in the sky just pierced me to the core. It left me stunned with a feeling of my own smallness. It also tugged me like a string was attached to my insides speaking something of my inherent glory. I could feel inklings of something unspeakable trying to charm me. These wordless notions pulsated below trying to rouse the body to agree with the spirit.
“He has set eternity in the hearts of men…” We were hardwired with the vastness of the infinite planted in our breast. Even when I was younger I would retreat into the woods to give in to the invitations of this mystery. I was mystically drawn to envelope myself in creation and let it swallow me into itself. Mind you, I was an athletic jock, but surreptitiously I was an in-the-closet mystic. The aesthetic over the years has trumped the athletic in me and I’m much more forthcoming with my dreams and desires. This nameless, faceless nudge has always fascinated me and drawn me to explore its source.
Again, the heart is central to the story. It holds the coveted key; it houses the inconsolable secret. It contains the account of our whereabouts and whatnots, voicelessly leading us toward our history and destiny all at the same time. And it’s not the possession of Christianity alone. It is shared by the whole of humankind binding us together as one. Every heart is pregnant with eternity from the vilest offender to the purest of souls. Hearts don’t tap into this upon conversion, they are prepackaged with this amenity from conception leaving all men responsible to steward that which the heart incrementally reveals over ones lifetime. I’m convinced these disclosures of the heart are experienced by everyone throughout their days leaving them with the option of shutting it out, but never with the choice of shutting it off.
“yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to the end.” Yet…that word says a lot about the heart. With all that we know about the heart of God and the God of the heart, we might as well get used to being suspended in unfathomable wonder. If your goal is to figure God out or to master the heart, you might as well throw in the towel cause you have a better chance of spitting a loogie across the Grand Canyon. I feel like the heart was given to us by God to keep us from arriving, settling, and answering. It always keeps us moving into the more, wrestling with us when we settle for less. It is just that very thing that draws me into God…his beyond-tracing-out features that keep me guessing.
So, there you have it. “Have what?” you ask. “I don’t know. Maybe a peek through the keyhole of the heart into fathomless expanse of eternity.” I respond.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 – “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 the beginning to the end.”
The moon was full last night casting long slender shadows through the living room as I turned out the lights before heading upstairs to bed. For one moment, I paused and allowed a thought to impede my progress toward my pillow. “Man, life is big.” That thought followed me up the stairs and pestered me as I brushed my teeth. Something about the luminous nature of that orb in the sky just pierced me to the core. It left me stunned with a feeling of my own smallness. It also tugged me like a string was attached to my insides speaking something of my inherent glory. I could feel inklings of something unspeakable trying to charm me. These wordless notions pulsated below trying to rouse the body to agree with the spirit.
“He has set eternity in the hearts of men…” We were hardwired with the vastness of the infinite planted in our breast. Even when I was younger I would retreat into the woods to give in to the invitations of this mystery. I was mystically drawn to envelope myself in creation and let it swallow me into itself. Mind you, I was an athletic jock, but surreptitiously I was an in-the-closet mystic. The aesthetic over the years has trumped the athletic in me and I’m much more forthcoming with my dreams and desires. This nameless, faceless nudge has always fascinated me and drawn me to explore its source.
Again, the heart is central to the story. It holds the coveted key; it houses the inconsolable secret. It contains the account of our whereabouts and whatnots, voicelessly leading us toward our history and destiny all at the same time. And it’s not the possession of Christianity alone. It is shared by the whole of humankind binding us together as one. Every heart is pregnant with eternity from the vilest offender to the purest of souls. Hearts don’t tap into this upon conversion, they are prepackaged with this amenity from conception leaving all men responsible to steward that which the heart incrementally reveals over ones lifetime. I’m convinced these disclosures of the heart are experienced by everyone throughout their days leaving them with the option of shutting it out, but never with the choice of shutting it off.
“yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to the end.” Yet…that word says a lot about the heart. With all that we know about the heart of God and the God of the heart, we might as well get used to being suspended in unfathomable wonder. If your goal is to figure God out or to master the heart, you might as well throw in the towel cause you have a better chance of spitting a loogie across the Grand Canyon. I feel like the heart was given to us by God to keep us from arriving, settling, and answering. It always keeps us moving into the more, wrestling with us when we settle for less. It is just that very thing that draws me into God…his beyond-tracing-out features that keep me guessing.
So, there you have it. “Have what?” you ask. “I don’t know. Maybe a peek through the keyhole of the heart into fathomless expanse of eternity.” I respond.
Comments