ETERNITY

Eccl. 3:11 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.

There is something amazingly different about man than all of the other creatures in our world. We are not holy like the angels, not as powerful as a lion, not as fast as a cheetah, and maybe not as intelligent as a dolphin (it is said that an average dolphin has a higher IQ than a human). What makes us unique? We are the only creature that is created in the image of God. We have been created with eternity in our hearts and somehow only knowing and relating to God Himself can ever complete and satisfy us. Nothing in this vast and beautiful creation can every satisfy that eternal part of us. This is what makes a lot of the modern day preaching so disturbing. Just thinking that Christianity is about living a better life with better things and accomplishments in this life sells the gospel short, eternally short. God is bigger and better than any part of His creation and nothing in this life comes even close. Here are some thoughts from Tozer on eternity.

“We must meditate on the eternal nature of God in order to worship as we should. You know, I often refer to Frederick William Faber, whose great adoring heart pressed into these mysteries during his lifetime in the nineteenth century, and he celebrated the vision of God’s eternal self-existence in these warm and wondrous words:

‘Father! the sweetest, dearest Name

That men or angels know!

Fountain of life, that had no fount

From which itself could flow!

When heaven and earth were yet unmade,

When time was yet unknown,

Thou in Thy bliss and majesty

Did’st live and love alone.

Thy vastness is not young or old;

Thy life hath never grown;

No time can measure out Thy days,

No space can make Thy throne.’

Brethren, surely this must be one of the greatest and grandest thoughts we can ever know: that it is the living and eternal God with whom we are concerned, and we acknowledge that only in God can there be causeless existence!”

So maybe that’s why you can never be totally satisfied no matter how good or how bad things go. You too have eternity in your heart and nothing less than God will do for you.