Tuesday 3 August 2010

Earth is salted with beauty that leaves us wanting more

Ecclesiastes 3:11  “He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts, but man cannot discover the work God has done from beginning to end.”

God has strewn exquisite beauty all around us, but only on a sample platter.  Beauty, says Ecclesiastes, has a time-limit.  Just a taste here, a glimpse there, a fleeting touch, and then it’s over.  God sprinkles just enough eternity over us to make earth feel incomplete.  We sense it in our souls -- earth’s paradises are only appetizers, leaving us hungry for more. 

Is life just a tragic comedy that means nothing?  So the best you can do is follow Solomon’s philosophy to eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow you die. Or could it be that God has brushed the commonplace with the scent of Another Place to lead us to the one place where we can find what we’re looking for?  Maybe all our unfulfilled longings are meant to drive us to God Himself.

Everything in the world and in the Word points here. 
Romans 1:20 makes this connection as well:  “From the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse.”  
Psalm 19:1-2 tells us that “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky proclaims the work of His hands. Day after day they pour out speech; night after night they communicate knowledge.” 

God wants us to find our happiness in Him, the only One who can fill the hollow places of our soul. 

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