God Is... Eternal

By Jason, M.Ed., M.A.R., Headmaster

We Were Made for an Eternal God

"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." (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." - Augustine

Do you think fish ever wonder why water is so wet?  Probably not.  As an old Chinese proverb says, "If you want to know what water like, don't ask the fish."  Why not?  Because the fish has no basis for making a comparison!  All the fish knows is water.  Water is not unusual to a fish; it probably doesn't even notice it, unless it gets removed from it.

So what do fish have to do with eternity?  Simply this: Our experience of time should be like the fish's experience of water.  Time should be rather unremarkable and uninteresting to us because we are born in and live all of our days in time.  Yet we remark about time in ways that show that we have a strange relationship with it.  We say things like "How time flies!" and "Where has the time gone?" We celebrate birthdays and milestones with a mixture of celebration and bewilderment.  As we grow older, we wonder why we're getting so old so quickly.  Clearly, we are not really comfortable with time, are we?

We feel out of place living in the confines of time for this simple reason: We were made by an eternal God for an eternal relationship with Him.  Time is God's creation and God Himself lives outside of time.  Much like a man who owns an aquarium full of fish, God stands outside of a universe that operates in time and all of the people and creatures in it live in the reality of time.  Yet unique among the creatures who exist in God's time-bound universe, we human beings are made in His image and we are made for relationship with Him.

I never did see a dog celebrate its birthday.  I never heard a bear scratch its head and say, "My, how time flies!"  The other creatures God has created are not made in His image; they don't have the gift of true language and they don't long for eternity.  It is only into the hearts of people that God has placed a longing for eternity, a hunger for something which only He can fulfill.

Our God is eternal.  He had no beginning.  He will have no end.  He is not bound by time but exists outside of and above time as its Creator and Lord.  We are made for Him.  We think it's odd that we are subject to the confines and ravages of time because we were indeed made for something more.  Only in an eternal relationship with Him will our hearts find what they were created to love.  Anything else is too short-lived and ultimately unsatisfying.

Jason is blessed to be married to a wonderful woman and to have three children (two boys, aged 7 and 5 and a one year old baby girl). He serves as the Headmaster of a classical, Christian school and as an elder in his church. He enjoys strong coffee, good books and nature walks with his family.

Comments

[jasonS]

Wonderful way to present this, Jason. Thanks--so good to meditate on.

[Dottie]

What a wonderful truth to meditate on, that I was made for Him!!