There are moments, even seasons, in my life when my desire feels ravenous. As if I am simply never satisfied. Ever craving bigger, better, more! I use the term ravenous to mean intensely eager for satisfaction or gratification. I have utilized much of my blog space to discuss and/consider the prevalence of desire in the human soul.
We can all probably agree, at least on some level, that much of our decisions are based on, and many of our daydreams are lost in desire. It’s rare that I find myself pausing to ask, “Desire yes, but to what end”?
What if my desire – unending and ever present – has an aim or an end? What if this end were God? A good and loving God in an often chaotic and caustic world?
What if?
What if all desire, on some level, pointed to God or a desire for a meaningful, lasting relationship with Him? Socrates once said, “Oh that someone would arise, man or god, to show us God.” Plato, a student of Socrates, said, “Unless a god man comes to us and reveals to us the Supreme Being, there is no help or hope.“
I wonder, when did my desire last burn for God and His goodness? When was the last moment my heart stirred in similar fashion to Socrates’ or Plato’s? Why do I so often settle for less than my heart’s deepest and truest desires?
Truth is, even if we admitted the existence of desire and yearning, we are unlikely to express outwardly this interior yearning we feel. We would be hard-pressed to find ourselves sharing it around water coolers, cubicles and classrooms.
Imagine. You are seated with good friends at a favorite restaurant you often frequent. The evening has been planned for weeks. You have known what you will order hours, even days, before you sit down to dine. You and your friends are lost in the moment. You are drinking in the moment, the smells, the scene around you. You, with your friends are enjoying good food and good drink and good company. You proclaim, in your joy, the popular slogan, “it doesn’t get any better than this.”
Then, at the moment you begin to relish in your good fortune, one of your friends says something like the following: “The food and drink is wonderful. The company and environment is splendid. Oh how this reminds me of my longing and desire for God.”
“Do whaa?” you think to yourself. Crash landing. Your dreamy eyed moment to remember becomes a shock and shame memory to erase. Seems odd. Borderline absurd. Simply for the fact that such a statement is audacious; utter nonsense. Even, unfortunately, to we who believe.
What if God were a God of self-disclosing beauty and ever increasing joy? What if, in fact, He longed to reveal our deepest desires through the ordinary walk a day world in which we live? What if desire – partially satisfied – through activities such as carefully prepared food, enjoyable company and well crafted leisure, reveals deeper yearning? Perhaps even a primordial yearning lodged deep within our soul? A yearning often stirred, rarely explored. What if God – this God of self-disclosing beauty and ever increasing joy – even promises to fulfill these desires?
What if?
I am discovering two wonders related to this God of self disclosing beauty and ever increasing joy!
- God has always been self-disclosing in His beauty and ever present in His joy. This is the ancient story of Creation, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God’s self disclosure explodes in immense beauty from the outset of this world. The ancient text relays that God self discloses His creative beauty and then washes us in His joy. He is pictured as one who creates in beauty, steps back from it and says, ‘Yeah, that’s just awesome.’
- God’s self-disclosing beauty and ever present joy are often shrouded behind the live too hurried and love too little world of a self absorbed people. In other words, God’s perceived absence is more related to my inattentiveness to Him than the absence of His presence with me. In the words of G.K. Chesterton, “The world is not lacking in wonders, but in a sense of wonder.”
As always Chesterton nails it. These words frame my life. I might tweak his words a bit and say:
“The world is not lacking in God’s self-disclosing beauty and ever present joy, but in my attentiveness to God’s self-disclosing beauty and ever present joy.”
In order to avail myself to the wonder of a world filled with Him, I must take a journey with Him and live a life in surrender to Him. In relation to this personal aha, I have been reflecting on the following question. I have found this question to be meaningful. One that leads to a host of other questions relative to my awareness of God’s presence in the ordinary moments of life:
What if experiencing God’s self-disclosing beauty and ever present joy were simply a matter of living less hurried and loving more vastly?
What if?
I suspect my desire in this life will continue to burn, fire and flame. Chiefly because my desire is otherworldly. As such, it’s fulfillment will be of another world. In King Rilian’s words, “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved Old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this.”¹
I resonate with his words. When Rilian finally arrives home (heaven), he realizes that he was the recipient of God’s self-disclosing beauty and ever present joy during and throughout his previous life! Yes. My deepest desire is yet to be fulfilled, but in such endeavors tasting a good meal shared with great company, I catch an inkling.
Dinner is coming. The evening ahead has been planned for weeks. I will go out with my beautiful bride (who will be stunning), and we will meet dear friends at a favorite venue with a wonderful atmosphere. What if?!?
Disrupting to renew
¹C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle.