Key Scripture:

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

Devotional:

Have you ever found yourself in a moment in God’s creation that has left you in awe? From watching the Grand Tetons come alive in the early morning hours from my campsite to waking up to the first snowfall in the Swiss Alps, I have no shortage of those moments.

Years ago, I found myself on a mission trip, wrapped in a blanket holding a hot cup of coffee overlooking the Nicaraguan landscape. As the sun rose over the horizon and unleashed a symphony of golden hues, I watched as the first rays of the morning danced across the mountains in the distance.

Time stood still as I took in the beauty all around me and experienced what King David meant when he wrote that the heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim the work of His hands.¹ In that moment, all of creation was pointing to and testifying to the omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient nature of the Creator who spoke it all into existence.

As I sat in awe, I felt the Holy Spirit nudge my spirit and impressed a few simple words on my heart, “What you’re gazing at isn’t created in the image of Me, you are.” Just as Adam found himself literally face to face with God in the garden, I found myself figuratively face to face with God of creation in the foothills of León. And for the first time in my life, I fully grasped that not only was I created in the image of God, but that I was His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that I should walk in them.²

And that changed everything about everything for me.

Up until that point, I spent so much of my life really searching and questioning what exactly my purpose was. I never quit searching. My passport was never stamped enough, no amount of academic or career recognition was enough and no relationship could ever satisfy my soul. I found my value, my purpose, my identity in things that had no purpose or lasting value and thought, “If only I had that job, that promotion, that stuff, those relationships, those friends, that influence maybe my life would be worth something, maybe, I would be valuable.”

And in God’s loving-kindness, that morning, I came to the same conclusion that Augustine did in his first paragraph of Confessions, “You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.”³ At that moment, I exchanged restlessness for rest for the first time in my life.

Because even though rest had always been available, it wasn’t until I understood who I was and whose I was, that I was able to work from a place of identity, instead of for one. And in that, I found soul-satisfying rest. Because the truth is: whenever we try to find our identity in anything other than the cross of Jesus Christ, we will be left longing, disappointed and exhausted because no job, no relationship or no dream was ever meant to hold the weight of our souls. 

“The sweetest thing in all my life,” C.S. Lewis wrote in one of his books, “has been the longing…to find the place where all the beauty came from.”⁴ His words echo the words that Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”⁵ For followers of Jesus, there is a day coming when we will no longer see in part, but we will see in full, and all our deepest longings will be fully met and finally satisfied.

Until then, we rest in the work and person of Jesus Christ, who is the beginning and the end, and by Him, all things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together. ⁶ And because of the cross, we can choose to trust that He will make everything beautiful in its time.

Deepening questions:

• Who or what are you looking to and asking to provide ultimate satisfaction in your life? How is that impacting your life day by day?

Further reading:

Genesis 1:26, Ephesians 2:10

Footnotes:

¹ Psalm 19:1 ² Genesis 1:26, Ephesians 2:10 ³ Saint Augustine, The Confessions of Saint Augustine ⁴ C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces ⁵ 1 Corinthians 13:12 ⁶ Revelation 22:13, Colossians 1:17