11/29/2021
By Pastor Vinnie Cappetta
"Perspective on Life"
Read Ecclesiastes 3:8-11
"a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
9 What gain has the worker from his toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end."
C.S. Lewis pointed out, “Our Heavenly Father has many delightful inns for us along our journey, but He takes great care to see that we do not mistake any of them for home.” The old Gospel song concurs with Lewis… “This world is not my home, I'm just passing through. . . . And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.”
Solomon in Ecclesiastes 3 shows us that there is a time for everything. Not only is there a time for everything, but according to verse 11, God has also made everything “beautiful” in his time. That word beautiful means appropriate. Whether it is a hospitalization, a car accident, a broken dream, or a broken relationship, God can make it beautiful and appropriate.
God is looking at your life from a different perspective than you are. He is looking through the lens of eternity. If you look at life through the lens of the 70 or so years that you will spend on earth, you will likely become confused if not disillusioned.
Let me see if I can illustrate eternity and God’s perspective compared to ours. Imagine a ball of yarn unraveled and stretched out so that it reaches the length of an entire football field. Now, take a Sharpie marker and place the smallest possible dot on the yarn. This will represent your biggest accomplishment or your least favorite part of the past year. Now, step up into the bleachers. Can you see the dot on the ball of yarn?
When God looks at your life, He sees it in the perspective of all eternity. He made you to live forever and that is what He is preparing you for. Though there are delightful inns for you along your journey, God takes great care to see that you do not mistake any of them for home. That also means that we shouldn’t lose heart when trouble comes, because our troubles are but light and momentary when compared to the glory that Jesus will reveal to us in eternity.
