# 499 Ecclesiastes – In search of meaning in life – 3:11 – Eternity in the human heart.

Defining ‘eternity’ when we live life based on the clock is a challenge. We have just read Qoheleth’s amazing poem which begins There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens, and now he moves from time to eternity. He says:

 ¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 

Some definitions of ‘eternity’ are “infinite or unending time… a state to which time has no application; timelessness… endless life after death.”Do you see the challenge here? How can ‘unending time’ be ‘timelessness’?

C Wright comments on this as follows: “Verse 11 is one of several key verses in the book. It expresses both a profound truth and a profound enigma… Qoheleth acknowledges that “time,” as he has observed it, is God’s creation. Time is part of God’s good and beautiful creation. There is a time for everything, so that everything is “fitting,” beautiful, in its proper time. Time is like a great, big, beautiful tapestry telling a wonderful story, spread across yards and yards of the wall of some great mansion. Everything in the tapestry of time is beautiful in its own place in the overall picture and the unfolding story. And because we can see part of that beauty, in whatever part of the tapestry of time we ourselves happen to live, we intuitively suspect that there must be a whole tapestry. Indeed, we suspect there must be something even beyond the tapestry—a wall stretching out on either side or a whole room in front or behind the tapestry. The bit of the picture we can see is wonderful in itself, but it points to something even bigger and greater, some real-life reality that the tapestry is part of, something that contains the tapestry but is not contained within it. We know that some bigger reality must exist than just the small part of the tapestry of time we can see because we live there. In fact, we suspect that there must be a whole tapestry far wider than our small part, but we can’t see or grasp the meaning of the whole tapestry from one end to the other. Why not? Because we live within the tapestry!”  (# 60)

We live in this world dictated to us by time and yet we long for much more and that is because God has set eternity in our hearts!

The NIV Study Bible comments on this verse and says:

“God’s beautiful but tantalizing world is too big for us, yet its satisfactions are too small. Since we were made for eternity, the things of time cannot fully and permanently satisfy.” 

When we turn to the New Testament we get a deeper understanding of eternity from the life and words of Jesus who said:

I came that [you] may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows [into eternity].)  (John 10:10 Amplified Bible)

Or as the Message puts it:

 I came so [you] can have real and eternal life, more and better life than [you] ever dreamed of.

Because:

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life … (John 3:36)

Paul then writes in Colossians 3:1-4

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. ³ For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

D Pawson comments on this truth: “Therefore, if you are risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where he is, and you are – that is where life is. Furthermore, we are not living in a life that is bounded by birth and death. We are already living eternal life that stretches through the grave and cannot be touched by death. So already there is a dimension that gives meaning and purpose, and every action of mine today and tomorrow is going to count and is going to leave its mark and will be remembered by God and by me. That has given a whole new dimension to life.” (# 61)  

So, enjoy all the good gifts from God (including time) but in particular, give thanks for the privilege of a right relationship with your heavenly Father through the death and resurrection of Jesus. But do this in the light of eternity and be both rich towards God and generous to those around you, knowing that one day we will all be required to give an account before our Creator. And hopefully, on that day, we will then hear those words:

Well done, good and faithful servant.  (Matthew 25:21)