Marc Drake, Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church
The Bible tells us that God has put eternity into man’s heart (Ecclesiastes 1:15). This amazing truth is born out in so many ways as we observe the people around us. Look into their eyes. They are filled with longings, needs and hopes. Of course, there are those who will tell them that they are simply molecules and DNA – nothing more than time plus chance. But there’s not much excitement in that thought! So, hearts cry out for eternal realities – just as we see indicated by Solomon in Ecclesiastes. This is why people search for something to fill the raging emptiness within. Now Satan, who is certainly aware of this search, comes along and offers endless possibilities in an effort to keep folks from the one thing that will fulfill and satisfy – and do so permanently. Thus, people keep searching in all the wrong places, not realizing that the devil’s promise of satisfaction and happiness is always broken.
So the question is voiced again and again in our day: “What’s missing?” The answer is that we were made for a person – the person that people from all nations and cultures long for, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Furthermore, the human heart yearns, not only for a person, but for a place. In Revelation 3:12 Jesus promises that in the age to come He will put on us the name of the person for which we were made (God Himself) and the name of the place for which we were made (the city of God, which is heaven)! When we think about it we realize that people spend their lives longing for this person and this place. It’s why so many move from relationship to relationship trying to find the person for whom they were made, but invariably ending up in disillusionment. People also move from location to location seeking the place for which they were made. They look for the bigger and the better – the new and the different – perhaps a dream house in the country or that perfect cottage on the beach.
But people are made for the eternal; therefore, we cannot be ultimately satisfied with the temporal. C.S. Lewis said it well, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” Another world, indeed! Lewis is simply echoing Solomon who declared that eternity has been put into our hearts. Therefore, in the midst of so much that is temporary, may we daily focus on the eternal realities for which we were made. And it all begins with a personal relationship with the King of kings and the Lord of lords.