Clarity

Over the years, I’ve talked with a lot of people who have said in one way or another, ‘I’m supposed to be happy.  I’ve got everything that this world says a person needs to be happy.  And yet I still feel like I’m missing something.’

As one author put it, ‘We learn through all of life there runs a ground note of cosmic disappointment.’  Haven’t you found that to be true?  Everything falls apart.  Most of the time it seems like the life we’ve always dreamed of, the one where we’re completely content and happy, always lies just beyond the horizon.  It’s always just beyond our grasp.  Just out of reach. Perhaps nobody has ever made this point better then C.S. Lewis who in his book Mere Christianity wrote, ‘Most people, if they have really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do 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 you, but they never quite keep their promise…

Each of us knows this to be true. We all realize that we haven’t attained.  That we’re not there.  That there’s something missing.  And so we look to different things to make up for that. And the inescapable conclusion from this endless search we’re all on is that nothing can scratch that itch in our souls.

The truth is, in the absence of God, we will inevitably look to other things to give us hope, meaning and fulfillment in life. Some look for these things in success or power, others look for them in beauty or being accepted.  Still others find their sense of worth in their children or in the way they are viewed.  Basically, whatever we look to to give us a sense of meaning value and worth, is our god.  In his book Counterfeit Gods, Timothy Keller speaks to this point when he writes, ‘Every human being must live for something.  Something must capture our imaginations, our heart’s most fundamental allegiance and hope.  But the bible tells us, without the intervention of the Holy Spirit, that object will never be God himself.’ And the point is, God always attacks the idols that we erect in our hearts.  He will not share space in our hearts with rivals.

And the whole process of growing and maturing into the fullness of Christ is all about giving God access to our hearts.  That's the key.  The principal thing that God is after is our hearts and only in yielding and surrendering our hearts to Him will we be truly satisfied.  

--Daniel