We had a West Highland Terrier for a number of years. “Westies” are tough little dogs, bred to tunnel into badger holes and engage the “enemy” in its lair. Our Westie was many generations removed from her origins, but she still retained that instinct, put into her through years of breeding. On one occasion she became obsessed by some “critter” under a rock in our backyard. Nothing could dissuade her. She dug and dug until she tunneled several feet under the rock.
Now consider this question: Why do we as humans pursue, pursue, pursue? Why must we climb unclimbed mountains, ski near-vertical slopes? Run the most difficult and dangerous rapids, challenge the forces of nature? Part of it is a desire for adventure and enjoyment, but it’s much more. It’s an instinct for God that has been implanted in us. We cannot not want to find God.
We don’t know that, of course. We only know that we long for something. “You don’t know what it is you want,” Mark Twain said; “but you want it so much you could almost die.”
God is our heart’s true home. As church father Augustine said in that most famous quotation: “you have made us four Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
And what is the heart? A deep void within us that only God can fill.
(A devotion from Our daily bread)
Many people do not recognize the void so they search to fill it with other things that will never be able to satisfy it.
The void may disguise itself as feelings of loneliness or emptiness, and when it does we will try to fill it with a relationship. In doing this we put unhealthy expectations on a person that could never fill those needs.
Or perhaps you find yourself questioning your purpose in life and find yourself saying things like “There has to be more to life than this.” Then because of those feelings, you find yourself like King Solomon in the bible, trying to gain understanding and knowledge through schooling, but still coming up feeling short of answers. Then you feel as though “there is nothing new under the sun.” Do not get discouraged! It’s because we were meant to search for God, to find him, and to know him!
My prayer for us as a people is that we would recognize that these longings are for God, and that we would trust Him to fulfill them with His love. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says “God has set eternity in the human heart.”
