An Amazing Fact: Our bodies run on a complex internal clock that affects more than just waking and sleeping. Almost every bodily function works according to this circadian rhythm. For example, certain medications are more effective at certain times of day: aspirin and antihistamines are best in the morning, while some chemotherapy might be best at night.


But humans aren’t the only life form with an internal clock; animals, plants, and even fungi have them too! For instance, the only time flies come out of their pupae is the early morning. Some plants will continue to move as if tracking the sun even in a dark room. Animals’ heartbeats, body temperatures, and hormonal changes have a daily rhythm as well.

It seems Solomon’s observation in Ecclesiastes is just as true for the animal kingdom as it is for humanity: “To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). In this poetic passage, Solomon describes a cycle of life than is inescapable. The harvest can’t come before planting, a new building can only be erected after the old one has been torn down, and, of course, each individual has both a “time to be born, And a time to die” (v. 2). All God’s creation is orderly and logical—everything is “appropriate in its time” (v. 11 NASB).

Nevertheless, God has given humanity something that supersedes this cycle: “He has put eternity in their hearts” (v. 11). In spite of internal clocks and the inevitability of death, some part of us knows that there is something more out there. We have been created in God’s image, and, without being told, something inside us knows that there is more to life than gaining and losing, keeping and throwing away. There is eternity to be won.

KEY BIBLE TEXTS
Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. 1 Timothy 6:12