Solomon now provides further insight into man’s perplexing situation in this world. God, who has made this world precisely what it is, governs it in such a way that each one experiences exactly what he determines.
Because we have this sense of eternity within us, we search for something to fill the void and nothing that we find on earth is large enough to do so. Without eternal meaning and eternal purpose, life becomes a terror which causes us to scream. I become afraid of my own existence, for eternity comes down upon me, and I alone am left struggling under its crushing weight. The task is too great for me. Most of the time I try to blot out the thought of eternity and fill the present moment with the trifles of time, but the effort leaves me sick at heart and I know there must be a day of reckoning for this act of self-deceit. We are trapped within time and although God’s purposes parade themselves before us as we move through life, we cannot see them in the context of his overall plan. Without God, human beings will always be frustrated, intimidated by the world that they find themselves in. Man’s refusal to come to God causes him much unnecessary pain. In his stubbornness, he refuses to come to his Creator for answers and insists on manufacturing answers for himself, but all that he invents is inadequate. God has cursed the creation so that nowhere that we look can we see something that matches the eternity within us. This teaches us to look away from the creation to the Creator. The only way we can find peace is understand why Christ had to come and die on the cross, to come to him for the pardon of all our sin, receive new spiritual life and realise that our significance comes not from what we do on earth but from the place he gives us in his eternal plan of salvation.
We see the scientific community persuading governments to spend fabulous sums on exploring the universe. It is really this instinct for eternity. Space – the largest horizon; if we do not believe in God, we have to be stretching out for something else.