The Pain of Pursuit

I have never been satisfied by a meal. Never once in my life have I finished eating and not felt the desire to taste more, if not for the fullness of my stomach. Rather than feeling satisfaction, the craving for food had simply dissipated — in some cases, I had had such fullness that eating more was more painful than enjoyable.

In fact, there is no area of my life in which I have ever been satisfied. There has never been a sunset so wonderful that there was no desire to see another. There has never been a victory or award received such that there was no ambition for further achievement. Far from ever approaching a life-state of total satisfaction, not even one area of my life has reached true fulfillment.

This is not unique to me. C.S. Lewis writes on this phenomenon in Chapter 10 — “Hope” —  of Mere Christianity. When considering the innate desires of a human’s heart, Lewis claims that people “want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to [them], but they never quite keep their promise” (Lewis,1952, p. 119). Humans house cravings that “no marriage, no travel, no learning, can ever really satisfy” (Lewis, 1952, p. 119).

Consider even the myth of Sisyphus. In his eternal state, he represents the pursuit of satisfaction. Time after time, the man “strain[ed] with hands and feet, he tried to roll [a boulder] up to the top of the hill, but always just before he could roll it over onto the other side, its weight would be too much for him” (Homer, 1969, p. 124). The greeks recognised this struggle: even in the pursuit of ultimate satisfaction, regardless of by which natural craving one may seek it, the pain of its pursuit always overcomes the desire for its attainment. 

Solomon writes in the Spirit concerning the same issue. Regardless of how much a man acquires, “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, [and] he who loves abundance with its income” (Ecc. 5:10, NASB). If a person pursues experiences, his “eye is not satisfied with seeing, / Nor [his] ear filled with hearing.” (Ecc. 1:8). Even the world itself cannot achieve satisfaction. Considering the sea, Solomon concludes that “all the rivers flow into the sea, / Yet the sea is not full” (Ecc. 1:7). As an inherent attribute of the world we inhabit, the world does not contain the satisfaction that each person craves and seeks.

The Source of Satisfaction

Where then can satisfaction be found? Does an appetite exist in humanity that cannot be fulfilled?

The answer is no, the craving can be satisfied.

Consider God Himself. The name of God describes His self-existence. His name is “I AM WHO I AM” (Exod. 3:14). God’s name addresses the core of His character, which is His self-existence and His unchanging nature. God exists because God is existence. From Him all other things find their origin and sustenance (Isa. 40:26-28; Col. 1:16-17). Unlike humans that labor and grow for the sake of pursuing their cravings and needs, God does not labor or change to appease His own needs.

God existed for an eternity before creating anything. He existed in a community with Himself fully satisfied by Himself. Even when He labored to create (Gen. 1-2), and even as He continued to labor  — “My Father is working until now, and [Jesus Himself is] working” (John 5:17) — and even as He continues to sustain existence — “[Christ] is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17) — God is not “served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things” (Acts 17:25). God does not labor as a result of His need, but as an outflow of His character.

Thus, the only thing that can satisfy is the infinite source of all things: God. Jesus says this as he converses with the Samaritan woman. When discussing the inability of water to bring a person satisfaction, Jesus claims that “whoever drinks of the water that [Jesus] will give him shall never thirst” (John 4:14). The source of true satisfaction is God Himself.

The Chasm of Sin

However, we humans are kept from that satisfaction by Sin. Sin cuts off the relationship that a person has with God, and with it, the satisfaction that we are designed to receive from that relationship. Consider Israel’s sin in going after idols. This spiritual adultery committed against God severs His relationship with them and causes God to declare “[Israel] is not [His] people, and [He] is not [their] God” (Hosea 1:9).

Even when God had just brought Israel out from Egypt, they committed this spiritual adultery with the Golden Calf (Exodus 32). This sin severed their closeness with God, and God declared that if He were to “go up in [their] midst for one moment, [He] would destroy them” (Exo. 33:5), and therefore Moses was made to “pitch [God’s tent] outside the camp, a good distance from the camp” (Exo. 33:7)

This relational separation is not only something that results between Israel and God, but distance is created by sin in the life of an individual Christian. One of the ultimate marks of a Christian’s closeness to God, the shocking access to God through prayer — “let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16a) — is hampered by sin in our lives — “You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way …. so that your prayers will not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7, emphasis added).

However, this relational distance from sin in the life of one of God’s children is not final. God ultimately redeems His relationship with Israel — “[God] will heal their apostasy, / [He] will love them freely, / For [His] anger has turned away from them” (Hosea 14:4) — and God never totally severs His closeness to a Christian because no “created thing will be able to separate [Christians] from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:39). But the relational state of a Christian is not representative of people as a whole.

The natural state of people is complete relational separation from and animosity toward God. Adam and Eve, as a direct result of their sin, left relational closeness with God. Rather, sin replaces the frequent and wholesome interaction depicted between God and man in Genesis 2 with mankind fearfully “hid[ing] themselves from the presence of the LORD God” in response to “hear[ing] the sound of the LORD God walking” through the garden (Genesis 2:8). Thus, the natural state of mankind is one of separation from the spring of Living Water. We are all naturally separated from the only thing that brings us satisfaction.

Despite the seriousness of this loss of satisfaction, the consequences of sin tend to be primarily thought of as the added pain inherent to life. While the world itself is cursed as a result of sin — “cursed is the ground because of you” (Genesis 3:17b) — and man is plagued by death because “through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12), it is a mistake to consider this as the only or even the primary consequence of sin.

Sin creates all the suffering that mankind faces. Not only does sin add all the pain in life, but also it deprives us of the most fundamental craving our souls possess: the craving for relationship with God. Thus suffering as a result of unsatisfied craving is just as tangible as the suffering that results from added pain. We suffer because of what sin adds, but we suffer even more because of what sin withholds. The suffering sin adds is only the symptom of the deeper cause of a lost relationship with God.

This universal craving is evident even in sinful man’s pursuit of spirituality in any way other than Jesus Christ. For although mankind is by nature separated from God — consider that before a Christian converts they “were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel” (Ephesians 2:12) — still they crave the spiritual fulfillment only He can provide.

In a desperate attempt to fulfill their needs, sinners “[forsake God], / The fountain of living waters, / to hew for themselves cisterns, / broken cisterns / That can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:12). They “[exchange] the truth of God for a lie, and [worship] and [serve] the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25b). The reason false religions exist is to attempt to quiet the desperate need a rebellious sinner has for the God they despise.

It is a simple matter to look into the world and see that it is infested with religions. It almost seems as though there are as many religions as there are religious people. Some people worship nature itself. Some people worship idols that are formed after the image of man. Some people skip the middleman and just worship themselves by declaring that God does not exist and that morality is found within oneself.

Regardless of the form that it takes, humans crave spirituality and morality. For some reason, a commodity that feeds no hunger, provides no warmth, and quenches no thirst accounts for one of man’s most central and ubiquitous appetites, and it can never be fully satisfied on this earth. To again reference the words of C.S. Lewis, “If [one] finds in [himself] a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that [he] was made for another world.” (Lewis, 1952, p. 120).

Our sin creates a chasm between our deepest and most prolific desire and the only thing that can ever satisfy that desire.

Crossing the Chasm

But there is a solution to the unfulfilled craving created by our sin. God Himself reaches out toward sinful Israel and “[betroths] [them] to [Himself] in faithfulness” so that they “will know the LORD” (Hosea 2:20); even saving those gentiles who are “grafted in among them and [became] partaker[s] with them” (Romans 11:17b).

The sin that “reigned in death” is defeated by the grace that reigns “through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 5:21b). Moreover, that wonderful grace frees us from more than the additive consequences of sin. Not only are the additive sufferings of sin done away with, but our craving for relational closeness with God can finally be satisfied. Jesus calls us His friends (John 15:13-15), John calls us God’s children (1 John 3:1-2) — and most incredibly — Jesus says that the Spirit of God is in us (John 14:16-17). There is no greater closeness than that which is offered by God to us through the blood of Christ.

As a result of the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, sinners can lay claim to the future inheritance of ultimate satisfaction. This is why it is crucial to understand that Heaven is not just freedom from the pain resulting from sin. If Heaven were simply earth without pain, then the still deeper consequence of sin — namely the relational separation from God — would still be present. What makes Heaven Heaven is not the gold pavement (Revelation 21:21) or the eternal life (Revelation 22:6b). What makes Heaven Heaven is that God is there in relationship with us (Revelation 22:3-4).

Satisfaction Now

So then is satisfaction something that only comes in the future? Are we left to crave unfulfilled until God finally brings us home?

No. Satisfaction is available to us now.

Jesus Himself says that He “came that [we] may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10b). This life is not something that comes in the future, but rather, this is life that we already have. Paul does not say that “he will be crucified with Christ, and Christ will live in him.” He says that “[he has] been crucified in Christ, and it is no longer [Paul] who live[s], but Christ lives in [him]” (Galatians 2:20). Moreover, “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

The life that Jesus promised to us is not something that we have to wait for in the future. The life that is ours through salvation in Christ is given to us at the moment of repentance. We already have relational closeness with God. We hear His voice through the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16-17), we speak to Him through prayer (Hebrews 4:16) , and we live with Him through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16).

However, we still live with sin. Paul discusses that even though we are alive in Christ, we are still chained to our body of death (Romans 7:21-24). Because our present sin is able to impede our relational closeness to God (2 Peter 3:17), it also cuts us off from the satisfaction we so desperately crave. It is the sin in our lives that keeps us from fully attaining the satisfaction that is available to us.

The author of Hebrews commands us to “lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us …. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2). Paul displayed the ability to find satisfaction in God when he spoke thus to the Philippians: “I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need” (Philippians 4:11-12).

What could have influenced Paul’s life such that even the bodily cravings he experienced were bearable to him? What could have so satisfied him that even physical hunger paled in comparison? It is his greater satisfaction in Jesus Christ. In the next verse, Paul declares “[he] can do all things through [Christ] who strengthens [him]” (Philippians 4:13).

Jesus did the same when first talking to the samaritan woman about the water that satisfies completely. Not only did Jesus offer true satisfaction to all sinners, but also validated His claim when he refused food and water from His disciples saying “I have food to eat that you do not know about …. My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work” (John 4:32, 34). While food, water, or even natural life itself cannot satisfy us, a deep relationship with God can.

We can have satisfaction — true satisfaction — in this life. While it will not be complete as it will be in Heaven because of the presence of sin in our lives, we can still pursue it and come closer to it.

It is no wonder that when Solomon considered the proper way to find satisfaction in life, he concluded that true life is to “fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person” (Ecclesiastes 12:13b). 

References

Homer. (1969). The odyssey (S. Butler, M. Willcock, & H. Schefter, Trans.). New York, NY: Pocket Books.

Lewis, C.S. (1952). Mere christianity. Macmillan Publishing Company.

New American Standard Bible. (1995). The Lockman Foundation.