Forever

Ecclesiastes 3:11
11 Yet 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.
We are told by the teacher, that God has placed something within the heart of humanity. He brings to the forefront of our minds the image of this type of seed, something that grows in time. As an infant, you would barely notice, if at all. That ‘something’ - is eternity.
Infants are preoccupied solely with the now, having no concern of the future, neither the bicycle for their 12th birthday, nor their retirement savings. Eternity has been planted in their hearts, but remains but a seed. As we grow as a child, we still have little concern for the future, but smell the faint aroma of the fact that we are more than temporal beings. It’s difficult to spot unless you are discerning. As eternity sprouts and gains root, it expresses itself in the disappointment that we are unable to reach the top cupboard. Without acknowledging it intellectually, something merely seems unjust in the things we are unable to do which those who are older can.
If you have had more than one child, you might recognize it a little more clearly with regards to how you gave them different privileges depending on their age. “Why does my sister get to stay up later?” The answer, ‘because she is older than you’, rarely serves to authentically settle the issue.
In popular culture, I hear a lot of talk that death is just part of the circle of life. On the ground level however, I’m convinced that every human being finds something unjust about death itself. Whether you are a believer or not, how do you respond when your mom or dad is reported to have cancer? Everyone that I have ever known takes that to be bad news, despite their faith or lack of it. Even when our loved one has been dying or suffering for some time, even though the pain seems to be over, there is still something that stinks about the whole matter. It reeks, because the seed of eternity has been planted in our hearts, whether we acknowledge it in those terms or not. There is that quiet, or not so quiet, voice in our conscience telling us, ‘It should have been forever!’ That voice is there, because it is right.
It is why even Godless rock stars sing songs about forever. It’s at the source of why we are entertained by immortal blood suckers and why we entertain the thought of the fountain of youth. In every human heart, we have the sense that we were never supposed to die.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_RKO5ozLVo