What The Hearts of Mere Players Hold by Gittel Fruma

Gittel Fruma came to believe in Jesus after growing up as an Orthodox Jew. Gittel lives with her husband and son in Clearwater, Florida. She is currently working on a book about her testimony and recording her first album. You can find her at her website GittelFruma.com or on Facebook at @GittelFrumaMusic.

I remember the first time I learned about The Scream painted by Edvard Munch. I wonder what he would think to know it’s been immortalized in the form of a commonly used emoticon. Ironic that this famous statement on existential angst has now been so trivialized that it sits in each of our cell phones next to a smiling cat and a winky face.

Do we really think so little of our own existence, our own search for meaning, that we can put it aside so easily?

I’ve lived with existential angst my entire life, although for a long time I didn’t know what to call it. As a child attending an orthodox Jewish school, I learned that when Messiah came, we would live forever. Everything would be changed, and the world would be right again. We used to talk and sing endlessly about Messiah’s coming. It was everything.

Being a child of both Judaism and science fiction, I was just as familiar with Star Trek as I was with Jewish doctrine. I would watch, awe stricken, as mankind would journey throughout infinite space. Their encounters with the unknown both mystified and terrified me. And at night, I would lie in my bed and ponder things I did not and could not understand.

If Messiah came, we would live forever. We would eventually travel through space, which is infinite. We would live in a world of time and space without end. The vastness of this notion was paralyzing. I’ve never quite been able to shake that feeling.

When I came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah I had waited my whole life for, I read my Bible voraciously. One day, I came across a verse that made all the others make sense.

“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 3:11b ESV)

This verse is so often quoted, yet I’m not sure we fully grip what it says.

Eternity in our hearts is what drives us forward. It is what fuels our aspirations, our desire for legacy, our respect for history, and our infatuation with ourselves.

We are so small, but we contain something so great. If we lose sight of Whom that eternity rests in, we start to believe it belongs to us. If we lose sight of the Eternal, we lose sight of everything.

God did not give us ambition for our own use any more than he gave eternity for such a purpose. We are to be ambitious for His kingdom. We are to forge His legacy here on the earth. We are not to exist without leaving a mark that points back to Him.

Ambition, legacy, and worth don’t look the same for everyone. They can look like supporting your church, raising your children, working with excellence, speaking of God to the people you know, or acting in His Name where you can’t say a word. It may mean that everyone knows your name or that no one does. But eternity lives in us all, propelling us forward.

A burning, beautiful piece of the world to come beats within your chest. The King who put it there didn’t give it to us to fret over but to treasure.

Remember this year as you continue your pursuits, whatever they may be, that you carry eternity within you. And if you were made for eternity, you can overcome whatever you encounter on this temporal ground.

You cannot find out what God has done from beginning to end, you can only do your part in it. So, do what is before you while you still can and trust God to do what you cannot.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. ~Romans 8:28

Photos by Karen Ruhl