"There is an appointed time for everything… He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning to the end." (Eccl 3:1a,11)NAS
The writer of Ecclesiastes draws us into what seems to be a random collage of patterns and component parts much like a kaleidoscope set against an eternal backdrop. Perhaps you’ve held one of these intriguing devices to the light, rotated it slowly and marveled as I have at the changes of patterns produced by the pieces of colored glass. If one gazes at a single piece of glass, it moves about in seemingly random fashion and the experience is far less satisfying than watching it contribute to the symmetry and sympathy of the entire pattern of pieces. Each time I picked up a kaleidoscope and held it to the light, I found a new pattern of pieces already in place. I often wondered as each new pattern developed, am I looking at a new pattern for the first time or is there really nothing new under the sun?
So as the bits and pieces of life swirl about and seem to repeat themselves, yet never in quite the same circumstances and often not with the same outcome, it is comforting to note that each is appropriate in its time and that in the distance, yet very close to all of us, is eternity.
Prayer: Father help us to see you in the patterns of life and to always sense how very close is eternity to all of us
Donald (Maine)