Everything is beautiful in its time, according to Ecclesiastes 3:11. But it’s the second half of that verse that concerns me. The whole verse says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart.” It’s that “eternity” in my heart that has always disrupted the here and now. All we know is that there is something more than what meets our physical eyes and there is an inbred yearning for it. I’m thinking that this is what the author of Hebrews is referring to in Hebrews 11:6.  Speaking of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the pilgrims in the Promised Land, it says, “But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” There is a longing in our hearts that transcends the physical realm in which we live.

But I agree that everything is beautiful in its time. I love my life and as I look back on it I remember all the good things of each era of my life. I loved growing up in North Omaha and fishing at Miller Park Lagoon. I even love many memories of my elementary school years at Blessed Sacrament school; report cards I was afraid to show, my paper route, washers, box hockey and tether ball at the Parks & Recreation department in the summers, the first kiss on the lips.  I even love those disruptive High School years at Holy Name where I felt unwanted and an outcast most of the time.  I love my year aboard the USS WRIGHT and the girl in Puerto Rico. I love my memories of the USS WALLER crossing the Atlantic, entering the Mediterranean Sea, transiting the Suez Canal and a thrilling port stop in Massawa, Ethiopia. I love the memories of the young blonde California girl who left her home and family to venture with me 3000 miles from home. I still love her! I love the fact that she followed me from California to South Carolina to Corpus Christi to Pearl Harbor, to Detroit, Michigan, back to Texas and finally back to Nebraska. I remember the Tonkin Gulf aboard the USS RATHBURNE and the years I spent in the Western Pacific away from her and the two beautiful boys God gave me. Even through the trials and hardships everything was beautiful in its time. Yep! I love my life! But I know there is something more. I yearn for it!

The rest of Hebrews 11:6 says, “Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” William MacDonald writes, “This spirit of pilgrimage is especially pleasing to God. Darby writes, ‘He is not ashamed to be called the God of those whose heart and portion are in heaven.’ He has prepared a city for them, and there they find rest and satisfaction and perfect peace.”[1] I now turn my thoughts to Jesus. In John 14:2-3 He says, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” Yes, everything may be beautiful in its time, but there is nothing like an eternal home where we find rest, satisfaction and perfect peace!

[1] William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments, ed. Arthur Farstad (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995), 2197.