{"id":2884,"date":"2023-08-11T08:04:50","date_gmt":"2023-08-11T12:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2884"},"modified":"2023-08-11T08:04:50","modified_gmt":"2023-08-11T12:04:50","slug":"eternity-in-our-hearts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/11\/eternity-in-our-hearts\/","title":{"rendered":"Eternity in Our Hearts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>.

Throughout the month of August,\u00a0we\u2019re looking at Ecclesiastes, that strange and seemingly \u201cmodern\u201d Old Testament book that depicts what happens when humanity searches for ultimate meaning apart from God.\u00a0<\/em>

Don Richardson didn\u2019t know it, but God had prepared the way long before he and his family moved to one of the most dangerous places in the world.

In 1962, the Canadian missionary, his wife Carol, and their seven-month-old son settled in western New Guinea \u2013 now known as West Papua, Indonesia \u2013 a spot that until then had remained largely untouched by modern culture.\u00a0 Richardson hoped to bring the message of Jesus to the Sawi tribe, a group notorious for its violence and cannibalism.\u00a0

When he finally had the opportunity to sit with the leaders and tell them the story of Jesus, they were indeed impressed \u2013 with Judas Iscariot.\u00a0

The Sawi embraced deception as their ultimate value.\u00a0 They were consummate actors, building friendships with the members of other tribes by continually offering expressions of trust.\u00a0 Then, just when the new acquaintance felt fully confident that all was well, the Sawi would strike.\u00a0

What followed was a feast\u00a0in which the \u201cspecial friend\u201d was served up as the Special of the Day.

The Sawi found Jesus to be uninspiring.\u00a0 As Richardson later wrote, he was \u201cjust the dupe to be laughed at\u201d \u2013 a fool to be mocked.\u00a0 The real hero of the story was Judas, who tricked his way into Jesus\u2019 inner circle and then sprang the perfect trap, sending his master to an inglorious death.

After several years, Carol and Don lost heart.\u00a0 There seemed no way to penetrate the Sawi\u2019s value system.\u00a0 They prepared to return to North America, especially after witnessing the 14th<\/sup> bloody battle between the Sawi and their hated enemies, the Haenam tribe, just outside the Richardsons\u2019 hut.

Hoping the missionaries would stay \u2013 especially because Don had been willing to share his steel tools \u2013 the Sawi promised to make peace with the Haenam.\u00a0 But Richardson wasn\u2019t buying it.\u00a0 How do you prove your sincerity if deception is at the heart of everything you do?

That\u2019s when members of the two tribes gathered again in his yard, this time to stage an elaborate\u00a0ancient ceremony.\u00a0

The chief of the Sawi tribe walked toward his wife.\u00a0 She screamed in despair as he took hold of their six-month-old son, holding him high in the air.\u00a0 Then he gave the baby to the chief of the Haenam.\u00a0 An interpreter explained to Richardson that the chief of the Haenam would rename this little boy and raise him as his own. He was now the Peace Child.\u00a0 As long as the child survived and thrived, there would be peace between the tribes.

From time immemorial, in a trust-impoverished culture, this had been the only strategy the tribes had ever devised to make, and to keep, a lasting peace.\u00a0

Suddenly it dawned on Richardson that this was the breakthrough he had been seeking.\u00a0 He later wrote, \u201cIf a man would actually give his own son to his enemies, that man could be trusted.\u201d\u00a0 The Peace Child was a \u201credemptive analogy\u201d \u2013 an ancient story embedded within the Sawi\u2019s long history, one they could understand.\u00a0

He gathered the Sawi leaders around him, and \u201cwith a pounding heart and dry throat,\u201d explained that God had taken the ultimate risk by sending his own Son to live among his enemies.\u00a0 He was the Peace Child for all humanity.\u00a0

Don and Carol spent the next dozen years amongst the Sawi.\u00a0 Scores of them chose to become followers of Jesus, and Christ\u2019s teachings now lie at the heart of their culture.\u00a0

Richardson went on to write Eternity in Their Hearts<\/em>, a fascinating collection of \u201credemptive analogy\u201d stories from missionary fields around the world. \u00a0The book became a must-read at many seminaries, including my own.\u00a0

Mission workers have long reported \u201cah-ha\u201d moments when it seems, as if out of the blue, the mention of a particular word or idea sparks a breakthrough with an otherwise hostile or indifferent audience.

One indigenous people group had long cherished a story, faithfully passed on for generations, about the sacrificial death of an animal with a white wooly coat \u2013 a creature that was unknown to them.\u00a0 When a visiting missionary described sheep, and Jesus as the Lamb of God, the group\u2019s leader sprang to his feet.\u00a0 \u201cThis is the news we have been waiting for!\u201d\u00a0 The entire tribe, in line with their leader, became followers of Jesus.\u00a0

The title of Richardson\u2019s book comes from Ecclesiastes.\u00a0 After Solomon writes, \u201c[God] has made everything beautiful in its time\u201d \u2013 a phrase we noted yesterday \u2013 he declares, \u201cHe has also set eternity in the human heart\u201d (Ecclesiastes 3:11).\u00a0

\u201cEternity\u201d is a translation of the Hebrew word \u2018olam<\/em>, which literally means \u201cbeyond the horizon.\u201d\u00a0 It connotes something everlasting \u2013 the recognition of an enduring truth that is just beyond our line of sight.\u00a0

It\u2019s as if God has placed a homing beacon in every human heart \u2013 a yearning that compels us to look beyond our happiest day, our most memorable vacation, and our greatest accomplishment and say, \u201cI know there\u2019s something more to life than this.\u201d\u00a0

Redemptive analogies aren\u2019t limited to faraway groups in faraway places.\u00a0

Perhaps you\u2019ve spent years praying for a family member or friend, hoping against hope that one day they will experience a flicker of spiritual recognition \u2013 an unexpected something that nudges them toward God.

Don\u2019t give up<\/em>.\u00a0

God has placed a hunger for eternity in every heart.

And even before it occurred to us to hope and pray for the ones we love, God was already preparing the way.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here. Throughout the month of August,\u00a0we\u2019re looking at Ecclesiastes, that strange and seemingly \u201cmodern\u201d Old Testament book that depicts what happens when humanity searches for ultimate meaning apart from God.\u00a0 Don Richardson didn\u2019t know it, but God had prepared the way long before he and his family moved to one of the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2885,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[618,623,622],"class_list":["post-2884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ecclesiastes","tag-gods-providence","tag-peace-child"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2884"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2886,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2884\/revisions\/2886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}