“I have seen the burden God has laid on [people]. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of [humanity]; yet they cannot fathom what God as done from beginning to end.”
~Ecclesiastes 3:10-11 (NIV modified).
We all search no matter how much we repress that urge. If people reject the urge to search, their very dreams turn to nightmares. They run from a God who fervently seeks them as if playing kiss-chasey in the playground. And still, because God is everywhere, and none of us can escape, he catches up with us eventually—in the very circumstances of life.
Life, then, once we accept him, becomes not so much easier, but truer and more aligned with God’s purposes. Peace and contentment are suddenly more available.
The amount of New Age converts and converts to this and coverts to that—not to mention those into Astrology, lucky numbers etc—that we all see is testimony that all people are searching. But what will they find. Will they find God in the mire of indifferent religion? Not usually. Chasing their tails for years until seemingly “chance” might have it and they find their way to a Christian meeting of some sort, and they find the love they’ve always sought; God is made real, he reveals himself to them and the rest is history.
Until people realise that God is a relational being—by virtue of the urges that he’s set in our hearts for him—they’re lost and can’t be found. God seeks to be known and he seeks to be related with. It all makes sense after the salvation transaction has taken place.
In effect, he stands at the gates of a sceptic’s hearts saying, ‘Open to me; my truth, my love, my wisdom, my power... my grace. In me is forgiveness of all your sins—those things that continually plague you and wear you down... in me is life—like you’ll never have it elsewhere... in me is the secret to becoming you... in me is understanding and peace. Come to me, now.’
If only more people had the wisdom to take a 3-month money-back-guarantee on a relationship with God—putting off their old life and embracing a new life, wholeheartedly, for three months. The vast majority who had their eyes truly opened to God’s wonder—finding their way home—would never leave the kingdom of God.
This burden that God has laid on our hearts is a burden of love; we need to love and be loved. God has designed us this very way since the dawn of creation—before the fall.
We’ll never know true love until we know a Saviour’s love. God came to save us. We need saving; all of us. And it is done. Jesus died on the cross so that we could have a real ‘pre-fall’ relationship with God, based on his forgiveness; that nothing can now separate us from the love, peace and sanctity of God.
© 2010 S. J. Wickham.
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