March's Verse
02/03/10 15:15 Filed in: Bible
Do you ever look over life with regret? So many things you wish you could have done? Abilities you have never had the opportunity to develop, or even discover? Perhaps you feel that you haven’t had a fair chance at life, or that you have so much more to give, or opportunities you’ve missed out on. Perhaps responsibilities for children or aging parents have placed restrictions on you. Or perhaps your life has been irrevocably shaped by wrong done to you, and you look painfully back and wonder what might have been. Or it may have been sickness, or accident, or… the list is endless.
That sense of ‘the way things could have been’ can sneak over us if and when we get a moment to daydream. There’s something deep inside each of us that longs for there to be more to life than there is.
Or perhaps you have looked at moments in your life, moments of deepest pleasure, and wished that they would go on forever. But they either fade away into everyday life, or are rudely interrupted.
And we long for more. Is that longing just the tail-end of wishful thinking, of long forgotten but cherished dreams? I don’t think so. I believe that that longing is a God-given longing.
We weren’t made for a few short years. We were made for something grander, something richer, something more noble, for a time and a place where there would be no disappointment, no sickness, no cutting short of days.
This month’s verse tells us: “God has set eternity in the hearts of men” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
It isn’t wishful thinking; that longing is a God-given echo of what we were made for. We were made to enjoy an unending life in perfection. Every joy in this life is an echo of that perfection, every moment is a reminder to us of the unbroken stretches of eternity that lie ahead.
Next time you’re enjoying something beautiful, and find yourself thinking “I wish this could go on forever”, or next time you find yourself thinking “I wish I had another chance at life” – then remember forever is on offer.
That raises the question: Are we ready for that eternity? There is only one way to be ready—through Jesus, the eternal one who came into time and had pain placed in his heart, so that we could have eternity and joy placed in ours. Do you know him?
That sense of ‘the way things could have been’ can sneak over us if and when we get a moment to daydream. There’s something deep inside each of us that longs for there to be more to life than there is.
Or perhaps you have looked at moments in your life, moments of deepest pleasure, and wished that they would go on forever. But they either fade away into everyday life, or are rudely interrupted.
And we long for more. Is that longing just the tail-end of wishful thinking, of long forgotten but cherished dreams? I don’t think so. I believe that that longing is a God-given longing.
We weren’t made for a few short years. We were made for something grander, something richer, something more noble, for a time and a place where there would be no disappointment, no sickness, no cutting short of days.
This month’s verse tells us: “God has set eternity in the hearts of men” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
It isn’t wishful thinking; that longing is a God-given echo of what we were made for. We were made to enjoy an unending life in perfection. Every joy in this life is an echo of that perfection, every moment is a reminder to us of the unbroken stretches of eternity that lie ahead.
Next time you’re enjoying something beautiful, and find yourself thinking “I wish this could go on forever”, or next time you find yourself thinking “I wish I had another chance at life” – then remember forever is on offer.
That raises the question: Are we ready for that eternity? There is only one way to be ready—through Jesus, the eternal one who came into time and had pain placed in his heart, so that we could have eternity and joy placed in ours. Do you know him?