He [God] has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11, NIV 1984).
My Musings -“The true wonder of human beings is not that we are sinners, but that even in our sin we are haunted by goodness, that even in the mud we can never wholly forget the stars.” (William Barclay, Scottish Theologian, 1907-1978).
Man is “haunted by goodness” because “the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness.” (Romans 2:15, NIV 1984). While at the same time struggling to acknowledge that there is an absolute standard of what is good. A standard so absolute that “no one is good—except God alone.” (Mark 10:18, NIV 1984). That “because of [our guilt] not one of us can stand in [His] presence.” (Ezra 9:15, NIV 1984). No wonder we are “haunted by goodness.”
So, what does man do? We deny standards of goodness that are absolute. We begin to “call evil good and good evil, [to] put darkness for light and light for darkness, [to] put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” (Isaiah 5:20, NIV 1984). With the hope that “some of us [will be able to] stand in [His] presence.“ Unable to “fathom [or accept] what God has done,” to enable us to “stand in [His] presence.”
He did not lower the standard so that “[some] of us can stand in [His] presence.” He sent His Son to die for us, to meet the standard on our behalf such that “everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name.” (Acts 10:43, NIV 1984). That was His plan “from beginning to end.”
My Advice – Do not be “haunted” by the goodness we cannot achieve on our own. Be happy that we can be “be holy and blameless in His sight…freely given us in the One He loves. In Him [and Him alone] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” (Ephesians 1:4, 6–7, NIV 1984).
“Even in the mud” of our fallenness, “He…set eternity in the hearts of men.” “So that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.” (Acts 17:27, NIV 1984).
Not what we can do, but what He has done.
