Ecclesiastes Chapter Three, Craving Eternity

So work is a means God chose to sustain our mortal bodies while on earth. But we become occupied with it, becoming workaholics or shunning work altogether and seeking a means to avoid honest gain. Yet the only thing that we are supposed to become this occupied with is God’s presence and kingdom, and how to advance His gospel. We’ve taken a vehicle to provide for the needs of the body and made it into something it was not meant to be, and therein lies the source of human vexation with work. Hollowing it out and shedding its original intention, work becomes either an opportunity for autonomy when we strike it rich, or crushing drudgery when we are trapped in a “dead end job.”

Verse 11 reiterates verses 2 through 8, adding that not only is there a time under heaven, but that God makes everything beautiful when its time has come. This may simply be the idea of something happening at just the right time; an occurrence we like to attribute to chance or happenstance.

Then the preacher speaks some sublime truth, reminding his readership that God put eternity in the hearts of humanity. Mankind understands on a fundamental level that we are meant to be eternal beings. That is why the prospect of death frightens us; death is an unnatural component to human life; sin brought death into the world, but humanity was not designed to die. Rather, we were designed to enjoy fellowship with our Creator and glorify Him. Philosophy and religion try to answer the hunger we have for eternity but fall flat. A guilty humanity stands exposed before a holy God, and sin stands as a wall between us and forgiveness. Death looms as a very real reminder that man has fallen and needs to be reconciled. To the man that rails against reality and insists that there is no God and nothing in life but what is under the sun, then why not act in congruence with that claim? Life is a strange accident bereft of genuine consequence; there are no whys to be answered; there is only the moment. There is no right or wrong, there is only subjective choice. There is no good or evil, there are only different perspectives, equally pointless in an existence where we spawned from cosmic absurdity and hurtle toward oblivion, where even the memory of us will eventually depart. Yet we live largely as though life matters, others matter, life is precious and death is fearful. This paradox is unique only to Adam’s race, since we are, after all, made in the image of God.

Of finding out God’s work, Paul wrote, “Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” Romans 11:33. Isaiah wrote, “Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has taught Him?” Isaiah 40:13. The Psalmist penned, “These things you have done, and I kept silent; you thought that I was altogether like you; but I will rebuke you, and set them in order before your eyes,” Psalm 50:21. Finally, Isaiah wrote, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord,” Isaiah 55:8.

God’s thoughts and intents, what He purposes is far above human thinking, just like the heavens are far above the earth, Isaiah 55:9. We are creatures caught in a moment of time; God exists outside of time and is the Creator of time. His wisdom is unlike human wisdom. His intelligence infinitely surpasses any intellect on earth. One could easily say that it suprasses all human intellect on earth combined. One may know through the conscience and nature that God exists. But unless one possesses the Spirit of God to be led by Him, knowing His thoughts at all is an impossibility. Knowing them as a peer or equal, even as His adopted children is an impossibility. Like one must be human to comprehend humanity aright, one must be God to adequately grasp His nature and purpose in time and eternity. That alone is a role designated for the Godhead, or the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.