Longings

 Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart" Ecclesiastes 3:11....If you don't keep the eyes of your heart on the paradise that is to come, you will try to turn this poor fallen world into the paradise it will never be. Live in hope for paradise is surely coming and stop asking this world to be the paradise it will never be." Paul

Tripp

Writer and Pastor Paul Tripp made some points concerning Ecc. 3:11 that I'd not thought much upon. He said that every cry of our heart that springs from disappointment, pain, sorrow, and so on, is a cry from our hearts for the eternity, the paradise for which the Father created us. I think that this is so.

We were not created to die, to experience disease, loss, aging, weakness, divorce, hatred, and constant conflict, as well so much else. All of these entered into the human experience with the sin that ushered them all in. Whenever we are faced with some reality, some reminder of the consequences of sin, we are also reminded that this was not what we were created for. We were created for eternity. His eternity. For His Paradise. A Paradise Lost, as Milton wrote.

I am now in my 7th decade of life. I am beyond thankful for all the good He has done for me and all the good things He has given. There has been much beauty in my life, but there has been so much pain and sorrow as well. I think it has been so for you as well. When the pain and suffering come upon us, within each of us in some sense that this is not what should be. That's why we constantly ask the question, whether directly to God or not, "Why?" Why pain, why suffering, why loss, why death? Planted within us by our Creator is the sense of eternity, paradise. We long for it, and we spend our lives seeking it out in this life......and it always evades us. It evades us because as Tripp says, we can never lay hold of it in this fallen realm. Even so, we keep looking. We seek it in relationships, marriage, children, jobs, possessions, success, and whatever we say means personal fulfillment to us. Yet, no matter how much of any of these we attain, there remains a hollow emptiness in our souls. None of them can fulfill us because we were designed so that none of them could. But we keep trying. If one marriage doesn't do it, the next one surely will. If a beautiful, large home doesn't, then we seek an even bigger, more beautiful one. If the seemingly perfect relationship turns out to be not so perfect, then we seek the perfect one that is surely still out there. And the longing remains, and it just gets stronger.

There is only one way to secure "paradise," and that is through faith in Jesus Christ. Adam and Eve were created to live in perfect harmony with their Creator God forever. They were to be fruitful and multiply, but through their sin and disobedience, sin tainted the human race, and brought the fall not only of the race, but of the universe around them. We have been seeking to regain it ever since and getting further from it all the time. Christ is the open door to regaining what was lost. He said that He was, "The Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but through Me." To the Father and to the realized longing for that paradise lost.

C.S. Lewis said that if we find within ourselves a longing for what this world can never give, then perhaps we need to realize we were made for another world. You have those longings. You know you do. You've learned that this life cannot fulfill them, though you keep trying and searching that it would. Could you dare to believe that what Christ has said and promised is true? Could you trust Him to fulfill what was lost and you still long for? It's why He came. It's why He came for you. Let Him fulfill the longing, beginning now and stretching into and throughout.....eternity.

Blessings,

Pastor O