Setting eternity in our hearts - blessing or curse?

We humans have a tendency to pervert anything that God has intended for good. I know from the Scriptures that God has placed eternity in our hearts. This is so much the case that, according to C.S. Lewis, we marvel at the passage of time. It would seem that, if we existed merely as creatures of time, that we would be very used to it and embrace it. But we rail against it, we lament over it, and we even curse it at times...all because God has created us for something more than this. He has given us an eternal perspective where time will no longer be an issue and has placed, among other things, a desire for that in our hearts.

I was thinking about black holes this morning and how there may be some that are roaming the universe seemingly unattached to anything. I was also thinking about the effects of a roaming black hole coming into a close proximity to Earth and a report that it would soon engulf our planet. Thinking about how certain people and populations would respond to their impending destruction was a mildly satisfying intellectual exercise and I determined that there would be a segment that would get their business straight with God by trusting in Christ for their salvation. I then surmised that, upon removal of the threat of the black hole, some people who had not been genuinely converted during that time may go back to their former way of life. I wondered why that was (other than the obvious) and thought that one of the reasons is that, maybe, they think that time is on their side. They may lose sight of the fact that they have a limited amount of time on this planet and that the removal of the threat of the black hole has not altered the fact that their soul will be separated from their body.

Is this the result of the effect of the eternity that has been placed in their hearts? Is this a perversion of the feeling of forever that we often have and that has been given to us by God? Is this an embracing of eternity to our detriment rather than to our benefit? All of this leads me to believe that, when I think that I have plenty of time for this or that or when I think that I am indestructible, I am taking this eternity that God has placed in my heart and using it as a club against Him...as a way to justify my laziness or my sin.

Get it right with God now, Mark, because time is short and you will die. Preach that to people far from Him. Anything less is, indeed, a perversion of a truly awesome gift.