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What do you long for?

When you find yourself in that brief moment where reality seems to stop spinning for just a second of clarity, what is it that you wish for? Do you long to be free, feeling the warm wind flow through your fingers out the window of a van on a cross country road trip? Do you long to rest, sipping hot tea wrapped in blankets in the shy glow coming from the fireplace? Do you long for love, a deep soul wrenching love that puts the fairy tales to shame and makes the poets envy? Do you long for truth, a certainty that there are answers to the questions that keep you awake as the world slumbers outside your window? I do.

There is a tragic hopelessness unfortunately found within humanity. We long so strongly for something that seems just out of our reach, and so often resign ourselves to an eternal state of pointless wandering. We spend our lives chasing what we think will give us freedom, rest, love, & truth only to be constantly disappointed.

In an attempt to justify this constant wandering or explain this constant disappointment, many of the world have come to believe that life is not about the destination, but about the journey within. According to this theory, we are supposed to run to whatever will give us just a taste of freedom, rest, a taste of love & truth. People influenced by this idea say things like, “I’m in love with being in love.” They run to whatever will provide the slightest of comforts for the briefest of moments, without considering how dangerous this idea can be.

The danger in this line of thinking can be seen in the desperate attempt to cure a loveless marriage by finding excitement in an outside affair. Families have been shattered, lives have been crushed, and children have been lost all for a moment of excitement… for a moment of pleasure… for the sake of the journey…

I cannot believe that the unsatisfying momentary pleasures of this broken life are the meaning of everything. There has to be something behind it all… and there is.

I think the essential problem with this “the journey is everything” theory is that in accepting it we mistake the vessel for its contents, and in turn the gift from its giver.

Romans 1 discusses what theologians call “natural revelation,” or the idea that God has revealed himself to the world through the world. Romans reads, “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.” According to this passage, from the beginning of time, we have seen glimpses of the glory of God, we have heard whispers of heavenly melodies, and we have felt brushes of God’s tender touch.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 compares these experiences of God’s glory to seeing dimly in a mirror. We live in a broken reality, where everything around us is only a mere shadow of what it was intended to be. However despite all of the brokenness there are moments when we just briefly catch the brilliance of God that Romans 1 refers to. We find it all over the place and in all kinds of things. Some people have seen it in the affection of a mother for her infant, others in the light breaking as the sun pierces the horizon, and still others have felt it in the passionate embrace of their beloved. I believe we have all known this glory in one way or another… This feeling of awe, of greatness, of what’s behind it all…

So we experience this reality of God in some small way and most of the time don’t recognize what it actually is before it vanishes. Then, in our attempt to recapture that feeling or moment we passionately pursue it in the venue through which it was presented. For instance a young woman who grows up in a broken home may experience this greatness in the intimacy she shares with her first true love. So instead of realizing the true source of this glory, she comes to believe that it was the intimacy itself that brought the experience, and in turn throws herself into relationship after relationship trying to capture that one moment, all the time mistaking the vessel for the contents, the relationship for the glory…

So what?

My point is this, when we say we long for freedom, rest, love or truth we are really mistaken. As much as we believe that attaining these things will bring us fulfillment, we fall that much further from seeing the truth. The letter of Colossians in the New Testament identifies the true source of fulfillment, the true reality that we so desperately long for. Paul writes,

“[Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together… For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile himself all things whether on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of his cross.”

The fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Jesus… He was fully God and fully man. God willingly took the form of a lesser being in order to bring His glory to us, since according to Romans 3:23 we all fall short of that very glory. According to Romans 1 the earth has been receiving glimpses of God’s greatness from the beginning of time, but according to this passage, the earth and all upon it received an opportunity to see the fullness of God. Jesus himself says, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”

Jesus is the key to unlocking the mysteries of this life. He is the embodiment of that passionate light that shines through in various moments of our existence. We do not merely long for broken forms of freedom, rest, love, and truth. We really and truly long for the source of all of those thing. We long for God. While God is love, love is not God.

The reason that we desire so much to be accepted by our friends is because we really long for God’s acceptance. The reason that we want so badly to be free from obligations and restrictions is because we really long to be freed from sin, that which only God can offer through His Son, the Christ, the anointed one, Jesus. We long to make money, or art, or babies because in doing those things we reflect the very nature of God.

Heaven therefore is not about getting everlasting love or acceptance, its about getting God. It is not about receiving immortality, its about getting to spend eternity with God! People are not scared into heaven or out of hell. People either choose to pursue God or not to. Jesus’ call to his disciples is always “follow me.” We are called to follow the light of the world (John 1) to our deaths at which point we will be finally freed from the broken reality that entombs us.

The book of Ecclesiastes is King Solomon’s account of the pursuit of all pleasure in his life. He was richer than anyone else that ever lived, and lived the life of a pauper. He sought pleasure in sex, food, wine, work, religion and in the end he likens this pursuit to “chasing after the wind.” Solomon realized however that it was not the wind he should have been chasing, but rather source and creator of the “wind”.

My dear family and friends, I challenge you to examine your life. Search for the glimpses of God’s glory that you have known. Test your pursuits to see if you are in fact chasing after the wind or if you are pursuing the source of all goodness, God. Look to Christ, for he is the only full embodiment of God’s glory and has called us to follow him, to die to ourselves, and to be raised to new life with him, through him. Don’t mistake the vessel of God’s glory for God. Search for the source of all goodness, all life, all truth and you will find Him.

For God promises through his Word time and time again, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”

May your heart long for the source of all goodness and beauty. May your recognize God’s glory in the world and pursue it with all of your heart. Amen

Revelation 21:23 “And the city has no need of a sun or a moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.”