Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Verse

Musings about what to write on and this verse is all I have to share. I appreciate the NLT translation that keeps the season theme of Ecclesiastes 3 (shout out to Adam). This is one of those verses that perplexes and encourages me at the same time.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

love it, yet scary at the same time. the picture reminds me of countless hours spent weeding the family garden as a child. fun times.

John Lynch said...

"everything beautiful for it's own time"

... Really? Everything? What about sin, injustice, selfishness, short-sightedness, pluralism, idolatry, etc. I'm sure I'm misunderstanding the verse. I've just always struggled with this phrase.

"everything beautiful" ... I don't get it.

Mike Moore said...

John, thanks for the comment. I missed out on it and just found it now, about a week later. That is definitely one perplexing part of the verse. Ecclesiastes is not an easy book and a lot of it doesn't settle with me.

I think in context of chapter 3 the poet is talking about a time to die, kill, uproot, uproot, cry, rejoice, etc. Now that still makes it hard, because dying, killing, and uprooting don't seem "beautiful." However, for it's own time, from the perspective of God, perhaps it is beautiful. But I don't want to play the "God card," and cop out that I'll never be able to understand.