NOTES for Ecc 3:1-11

To be honest, at first sight the picture painted by Ecclesiastes seems rather bleak. Birth and death, building and destruction replace one another in an endless cycle... And the chief feeling this produces is unease and anxiety: nothing that is dear to us lasts forever...

Then, after all this, Ecclesiastes suddenly speaks of peace. What is this peace that the Lord placed in the human heart from the beginning? Apparently, it is not merely the absence of anxiety. His peace is more complex than the human idea of peace. His peace is something bound up with His Person. What He has placed within us is, first of all, a longing for Him.

Because of this longing, we can look at everything that happens from the standpoint of eternity and see that everything passes and everything changes... but He abides forever. He abides with us, for He is faithful. And this peace in the heart cannot be destroyed.