In Time for Eternity
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven…”
(Ecclesiastes 3:1–11)
The old clock in my grandmother’s living room ticked with a steady, deliberate rhythm. As a child, I’d sit cross-legged on her floral rug and listen to it mark the passing seconds — tick… tock… tick… tock… She used to say, “Each tick is a gift, Andy. Don’t waste it.”
At the time, I thought she was being sentimental. But now I realize she was echoing one of the oldest truths ever written — that there is indeed “a time for everything.”
Solomon’s words in Ecclesiastes 3 frame life in the tension between time and eternity. They remind us that the rhythm of our lives is filled with contrasts: joy and sorrow, planting and uprooting, laughter and tears. Life moves between mountain peaks and shadowed valleys — and yet, each moment, whether radiant or raw, belongs within God’s design.
We live inside time’s ticking — racing between calendars, appointments, and deadlines — yet within each of us beats something that refuses to be contained by clocks. “God has set eternity in the hearts of men.” There’s a longing in us that whispers, there must be more than this. It’s that sacred ache that wakes us in the quiet moments, when the noise of life fades and eternity feels near.
When Solomon penned these words, he was describing more than the passage of days. He was pointing us toward a greater horizon — where time gives way to timelessness, where pain and loss are swallowed up by beauty and peace. In eternity, there are no “seasons,” no pendulums swinging between joy and grief. There is only wholeness.
But here’s the beautiful twist: eternal life doesn’t begin when our heart stops beating. It begins the moment Jesus takes up residence within it. The eternal One stepped into time — into the dust, sweat, and tears of human living — to show us that heaven’s peace can begin now.
Every act of grace, every moment of forgiveness, every prayer whispered in faith is a small collision between time and eternity — a glimpse of heaven’s rhythm breaking into our hurried one.
So perhaps the invitation of Ecclesiastes 3 is not just to endure the seasons, but to infuse them with eternity.
To love deeply in a time of loss.
To hope boldly in a season of waiting.
To laugh freely in a time of tears.
To live eternally in the midst of time.
How can you bring “up there, down here” today?
Where might God be inviting you to live with an eternal heart — in the middle of your everyday time?
(Ecclesiastes 3:1–11)
The old clock in my grandmother’s living room ticked with a steady, deliberate rhythm. As a child, I’d sit cross-legged on her floral rug and listen to it mark the passing seconds — tick… tock… tick… tock… She used to say, “Each tick is a gift, Andy. Don’t waste it.”
At the time, I thought she was being sentimental. But now I realize she was echoing one of the oldest truths ever written — that there is indeed “a time for everything.”
Solomon’s words in Ecclesiastes 3 frame life in the tension between time and eternity. They remind us that the rhythm of our lives is filled with contrasts: joy and sorrow, planting and uprooting, laughter and tears. Life moves between mountain peaks and shadowed valleys — and yet, each moment, whether radiant or raw, belongs within God’s design.
We live inside time’s ticking — racing between calendars, appointments, and deadlines — yet within each of us beats something that refuses to be contained by clocks. “God has set eternity in the hearts of men.” There’s a longing in us that whispers, there must be more than this. It’s that sacred ache that wakes us in the quiet moments, when the noise of life fades and eternity feels near.
When Solomon penned these words, he was describing more than the passage of days. He was pointing us toward a greater horizon — where time gives way to timelessness, where pain and loss are swallowed up by beauty and peace. In eternity, there are no “seasons,” no pendulums swinging between joy and grief. There is only wholeness.
But here’s the beautiful twist: eternal life doesn’t begin when our heart stops beating. It begins the moment Jesus takes up residence within it. The eternal One stepped into time — into the dust, sweat, and tears of human living — to show us that heaven’s peace can begin now.
Every act of grace, every moment of forgiveness, every prayer whispered in faith is a small collision between time and eternity — a glimpse of heaven’s rhythm breaking into our hurried one.
So perhaps the invitation of Ecclesiastes 3 is not just to endure the seasons, but to infuse them with eternity.
To love deeply in a time of loss.
To hope boldly in a season of waiting.
To laugh freely in a time of tears.
To live eternally in the midst of time.
How can you bring “up there, down here” today?
Where might God be inviting you to live with an eternal heart — in the middle of your everyday time?
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