Week 22 Ecclesiastes
The bible I’m reading says that the Lord has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in (people’s) hearts, yet so that (they) will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.
The idea seems to be that people – as part of our natural constitution – have something called ‘eternity’ planted inside us. I wondered what exactly it is to have ‘eternity’ inside me.
I checked a bunch of other versions. About 27 of them used the word ‘eternity’. About 10 used the substitute word ‘the world’. That didn’t help and other versions weren’t much help in saying what God put in me. Questions? Desire to know the future? Obscurity? Ignorance? Knowledge? Thoughts of forever? These suggestions seemed like a bit of guesswork. None of them helped very much.
In spite of that the verse was still useful. The Lord has put something inside me that’s bigger than the normal things related to my natural self of space and time. So that seems pretty good. But what’s not so good is that this internal enhancement – as good as it is – isn’t comprehensive enough for me to know what-all I need to know.
It’s like it tips me off that I need to know something more. But doesn’t give me the content. Warns me that I’m lacking something but doesn’t tell me what it is.
Note: quote from Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NASB and with words from other bibles). End-of-May reading report: 55% completed.