02/10/2026
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF TENDING YOUR SOUL
Ecclesiastes chapter three was one of my dad’s favorite passages. I’ve often found thatinteresting because much of Ecclesiastes speaks about the vanity of this life.
The following passage is also often requested to be read at funerals—especially these verses:
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance…” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-4)
The dyads of comparison continue through verse 8—but if we stop at that verse, we miss the full measure of how God uses these apparently “opposite” experiences. The author, King Solomon, continues:
“What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." (Ecclesiastes 3:9-11)
Because we’re made in the image of God, and God is eternal, people know in their hearts that they'll live forever. We don’t have to be convinced of it; we know it at our cores. But how long is eternity?
If God told a little bird to gather every grain of sand on Earth and carry it to the Moon, then take both to Venus, then all three to Saturn, and so forth, by the time that little bird gathered up the entire universe, it would be 9:35 in the morning—on the first day of eternity.
That’s why the most important thing we can ever do is to secure the salvation of our souls. Jesus said:
“What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" (Mark 8:36)
Jesus also said:
“Some will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Matthew 25:46)
You should be most concerned about where you'll spend the longest, not just the next few years.
Tend your souls wisely, my friends! A soul is the only part of us that will live forever!
Bishop Jeff Greenway
