Eternal Perspective . . . Where’s Mine?

God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

“Eternal perspective? Eternity planted in my heart? Lord, I am not sure I have it! How do you get it? It sounds very important.”

Have you ever wondered these things too?

When I finished my education with absolutely no training in sharing my faith or talking about God, and without ever going to Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru) meetings as a college student, I ended up on staff with this wonderful evangelical organization immediately out of graduate school.

You see, a cute boy named Leon told me that he could see me working on staff. God kept this notion on my heart, so I did what any normal person would do. I looked up Campus Crusade for Christ in the Yellow Pages and called the local director and his wife. After new staff training in San Bernardino, California, I was assigned to the University of Virginia to work with college students.

But instead of jumping for joy, I cried. I wanted to go where I could hide behind a lot of other staff members who knew what they were doing! I was the only single girl on staff with a married couple. Once the director asked me to give a message on “eternal perspective,” and I had to tell him I couldn’t do it because I simply didn’t have an eternal perspective at the time!

God used pain and loss to cultivate eternity in my heart, and I am grateful to know that I have an eternal perspective now. It just took some time to grow! You and I have an eternal perspective planted in us since we are created by God, but we must do our part to cultivate it by getting to know Him through His Word, worshiping Him with growing believers in the body of Christ, and learning from godly leaders.

God plants eternity in our hearts and can fertilize our souls even in loss, when we cannot see the whole picture. Consider how you are cultivating an eternal perspective in the daily circumstances of your life. Ask Him to help your perspective grow as He reveals Himself to you.