Ecclesiastes 3 Eternity in the Human Heart

I invite you to spend a few moments to prepare your heart to receive the Word of God as you prayerfully consider this (off-lectionary) Scripture passage for this week.   Breathe deeply and with a simple breath prayer turn your attention to God of yesterday, today and tomorrow.   Use this one or create your own (six to eight syllables)

          Breathe in … Timeless God (pause)         
               Breathe out ...  give me beauty (pause)
           
Repeat your breath prayer until you are ready to move deeper into the text ...  Pray: Timeless God, you say there is a time for everything.  Everything changes but you are the same today as you were yesterday and you will be the same tomorrow.  And that is what gives us hope in our chaos.    Amen

Step 1: Lectio … Reading    
Read Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 (NLT) silently to yourself slowly and reverently.  
Listen for a word or phrase that catches your attention.  
Gently focus on that word or phrase.  
Repeat it several times.
Allow your word or phrase to be sifted through your heart and mind all the way to your soul.

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.  
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.  
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to cry and a time to laugh.  
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. 
A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to quit searching. 
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend.   
A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate.  
A time for war and a time for peace.  
What do people really get for all their hard work?
I have seen the burden God has placed on us all.
Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. 
[God] has planted eternity in the human heart, 
but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work 
from beginning to end.

Step 2: Meditatio … Receiving
Read Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 (NLT) a second time ...
Continue to focus on your word or phrase.    
Be aware a different word or phrase may draw your attention on this reading
Pay attention to the thoughts and feelings your word or phrase evokes.
What images emerge in your imagination?    
What memories come to your mind?
Ask God to continue to speak to you through this word.    
Listen for God’s reply as you move through your day

Step 3: Oratio … Responding
Read Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 (NLT) a third time ...
Be aware a different word or phrase may draw your attention on this reading
Consider any desires that have been awakened by your prayerful reading.   
Perhaps you have found an area of your life that needs attention.   
Do not rush ... wait and listen as God forms your prayers and desires

Step 4: Contempatio … Resting
Allow yourself to rest in the silence.  
Allow your mind to settle into the silence.  
When you feel the time to move on,

Pray … Timeless God, I see the beauty you have created in all creation and in all people.  And I feel the burden.  Fill me with a sense of your timelessness as I surrender my agenda to you in this present moment.   Amen …

Cindy’s Meditation on Ecclesiastes 3:11b ...
[God] has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.

Life is hard to live
when the future is unknown …
Yet the future is always
unknown … uncertain … unreachable
In the depths of my mind

I strive against the order of life
And fret over things I can never know
I hesitate for fear of becoming
Hemmed in and trapped
In a future not created for me

Always torn between what was
and what is to come
Always waiting
for the end of a moment
that closes one thought
And begins another
Always another thought
In the story of life
That goes on … and on … and on
Always changing
Never stopping

I can’t catch my breath
For the winds of change
continue to move
I can’t get my bearings
For I’m pulled into the vortex
of churning emotions …
I can’t find myself
Till my soul reaches out
And pulls me into
The dark of the deep

A Painting by Merilyn Hully © 2009

  

“Be still” she whispers
as I enter her spaces
sweet silence surrounds me
as her peace enters my chaos ... Amen.
© Cindy Serio 2007

I wrote this reflection in my journal after meditating on Ecclesiastes 3 at some point in the last year of my mother’s life.   That last year was not pretty.   It was one of the most chaotic times of my life and I felt like I just couldn’t catch my breath.  Have you ever felt that way?  That life was just moving by so fast that you couldn’t catch your breath.  Perhaps someone reading this may feel that right now.  You are in my prayers ...  

Anyway, my dad would call and he would say, “I think it’s the end … she’s not going to make it through the weekend.”  And I would drop everything and go.  It didn’t take me long to realize that whenever he got really tired … and it really was him that wouldn’t be able to make it, he would call.  He was simply incapable of saying, “I’m tired and I want you to come and help me.”   And toward the end, not pretty became pretty ugly.  I remember on an especially bad day, my sister and I stood outside her door and listened as she clung to my dad … she was crying, “those girls are trying to kill me.   You promised you would never leave me.  Please don’t leave me …”    My dad was the only one who could provide my mom comfort at the very end, to the point that, when they decided to remove all life support and she really was going to die, he didn’t call me until she was gone.   And so I went one last time to say good-bye for real … 

The morning after I arrived … I sat out on the patio looking upon the rock garden that my mother loved to tend, a little overgrown now and it was so still … the only sound was the breeze blowing through the massive trees on the land.  Suddenly two little birds came sailing through the air, chattering to one another and to me for just a moment in time.  My mom and my grandmother loved birds … As the little birds fluttered away … I was filled with a mixture of deep peace and pure joy.  For it was a sign not only of their love for me made complete … just as God had hovered over the waters of chaos calling this world into creation, God hovered and fluttered in MY chaos to call peace into my heart.  

Chaos … in ordinary use the word means confusion or disorder.  In biblical terms chaos actually means a chasm or an abyss so it can indicate some kind of separation from God … and I think sometimes we feel a separation when there really isn’t one. 

[God] has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, [we] cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.  Ecc 3:11b

I think sometimes we feel like we’re in chaos because we can’t see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end” and we find ourselves separated from God because we are not able to trust that God is holding eternity as we are being called to zipline into the abyss.  And we do not know that God is there to welcome us when we land on the next platform. 

As the people of God, we are a “called” people.

Just like Abraham ... Just like Esther ... Just like the Disciples.
And SO many others![God] has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, [we] cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.  Ecc 3:11b
One of the major components of the spiritual lives of Abraham, Esther, Mordecai, Jesus and the Disciples was their vibrant prayer life.   

• Abraham built altars to God, experienced God in dreams, interceded and negotiated with God on behalf of Sodom, 

• Esther and Mordecai fasted to give their prayers power, 

• Jesus spent long hours in the wilderness, on the mountains, and in the garden alone and with others in the quiet with God, and 

• the disciples healed with their prayers, spoke in tongues, had visions and sang their prayers in prison …

Communication with God is a huge component of the journey from chaos into confidence and that is … Recently the Barna Group conducted a religious study on prayer habits.   George Barna found the average time spent in daily prayer by individuals today is 5 minutes. He says "while many people sincerely desire to spend time with God, few actually do...”  

In his book, Prayer: The Heart's True Home, Richard Foster says that "the desire to pray is a prayer."   I agree with him.   I also believe that people often have such a narrow view of what prayer is that they can’t see that God is calling them to prayer in a different way, a way that will work for them.   If we are able to learn new ways of encountering, communicating and experiencing God, we will spend more time with God.    As we spend more time in prayer we will be able to hear God call … and follow God with confidence and joy!

Read the end of this Ecclesiastes passage as if addressed to us in community …
I know that there is nothing better for [us] than to be happy and enjoy [our]selves as long as [we] live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in life’s work.  I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken away from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before [God].

Dear friend, as we come together in awe before God,
I want to you to remember you are “called.” 
Are you going to go where God leads you?
If so, "Go in Peace!  Go in Joy!  And Go with God!  Amen!