Desiring the Infinite
Half Dome in Yosemite National Park
Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances.
- Robert Hass, “Meditations at Luganitas”
One thing that continues to surprise me is the human ability to desire that which is infinite.
There is a longing built into every human being that seeks to reach a state of full satisfaction. It is something everyone has experienced, whether we realize it or not. It is that inner desire for things to be as they should be. More than that, it is a desire to be and feel “full.”
What I am describing can be defined and experienced in many ways.¹ For many, it manifests in a yearning for a sense of purpose, one that gives you a sense of direction—a reason for existing in a world with so many unknowns. For others, it feels like a quest for identity, one that gives you meaning, value, and worth. It often shows up as a desire for belonging, one that makes you feel safe, loved, and secure. And more often than not it shows up as a recurring longing for home—a place where you can be truly satisfied, a place where people love you, a place where purpose, identity, and belonging are wrapped up into one.²
So, we as people want to be satisfied—and yet, the human experience is mostly learning that we come up short of that reality. We work tirelessly for moments—literally seconds!—of feeling “satisfied,” and then the feeling goes away. Then we go right back at it again, chasing fulfillment that comes and goes as quickly as the wind.
We all have ways of dealing with our desires for ultimate fulfillment. Many of us look to careers. We believe that once we get a certain job or reach a certain point in our career, then we will be really happy. Some of us look for it in our achievements. We believe that once we accomplish a certain thing or surpass a certain milestone, then we will finally be satisfied with our lives because we know we aren’t a failure. Others of us look for fulfillment in other people. We look to a certain friendship or romantic relationship to give us an ultimate sense of belonging. We think, “Once I find that person, THEN I’ll be happy. Once I get that job, THEN everything will be alright. Once I do that thing, THEN I will feel like a somebody.”
But the horrible and tragic truth about the human condition is that our desire to be filled far outweighs our ability to fill it. The job is glorious for a little while, then it loses its sparkle. The money temporarily satisfies, but it doesn’t get at the real issue. The achievement provided meaning for a time, but it eventually wears out. The honeymoon phase ultimately ends, and the person you thought was everything turns out to fall way short of the mark. And then, as we realize the thing we were really looking for wasn’t actually in the thing we sought, we look for it again in something or someone else. And the cycle begins anew, and we live our lives constantly yearning for things our world is unable to offer. Our desire is just too big.
Can this really be the whole story? Is life really just a constant cycle of disappointment? A repetition of feelings of dissatisfaction?
Our desire for Ultimate Fulfillment—will it ever actually be met?
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CS Lewis has a quote in his book Mere Christianity that gets at this idea. He writes:
Creatures are not born with a desire unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there’s such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world… Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.
According to Lewis, there is a reason our jobs, our achievements, and our relationships don’t fully satisfy us. The reason, he says, is because we were made for “another world,” for something bigger, better, and more full than anything we can experience on our own.
The Christian answer to this dilemma—to the dilemma of Man’s Desire for Infinity—is the belief Infinity actually exists. Our desire for ultimate meaning, satisfaction, identity, and belonging—our desire for home—points to an Infinity that provides all of these things. It points, ultimately, to the Infinite One—God revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ.
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When Jesus of Nazareth came on the scene in the hill country of Galilee, He directly addressed people’s needs. He healed everyone who came to Him, whether they were sick, injured, permanently disabled, demonized, or dying—he healed them all. He fed thousands of people on multiple occasions, providing for their physical needs. And yet, Jesus addressed human “need” at a deeper level. On one occasion, as he is speaking to a woman at a well, he says:
Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.³
Jesus bypasses the woman’s temporal thirst for water and goes directly to her deeper thirst. He says to her, “I know what you really need, and I have it.”
In another place, Jesus says these equally startling words:
I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.⁴
Jesus’ words suggest it is not merely that he has what we need, but rather that He Himself is the thing we need. He is the only one who can provide what we are really searching for.
The Christian tradition has always said this: God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, is by nature a God of relationship. Existing eternally as Father, Son, and Spirit, He created us to enjoy reality with Him—or, more accurately, to enjoy God with Him. The Father, Son, and Spirit have always been enjoying each other’s communion, living in a Love so real it birthed our very existence.⁵ God’s desire is that we share in His communion—that we, as His children, enjoy Him forever.⁶ We were designed to walk with God “in the Garden in the cool of the day.”⁷
But humanity turned from God, seeking satisfaction in other things, and we have been doing so ever since. Human history is a brutal replay of the same, recurring story: Man seeks eternal fulfillment through temporary experiences and, in the process, manages to destroy anything or anyone who gets in his or her way. History gives us little hope the future will be any better—especially considering we just got out of the bloodiest century in the history of the world, mental health and suicide rates are through the roof, and economic injustice is still rampant across the world. Are we really going to believe the lie that society is progressing toward “utopia?”⁸
Jesus offers another answer for the longing we all feel but can never fully satisfy. He says that He—not our job, house, girlfriend, or college degree—can truly fill us up. He says He is the thing we really need, the thing we were really created for, and the only thing that will really satisfy our souls.
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I’ve been a Christian for six years, and I can tell you honestly that Jesus is the only thing that will fill the ache in your soul. I’m not going to act like I live in a perfect state of satisfaction and fulfillment and peace all the time, because that’s not true. Not at all. In a broken, fallen world, that is no one’s experience. There will be suffering, pain, and dissatisfaction until Jesus comes back.⁹ But I do know, without a doubt, that Jesus is the answer to “the ache,” that He is the Endless Bread who can fulfill a desire of endless distances. One day, when Jesus returns in glory, I will experience His joy—true, Ultimate Satisfaction—in fullness. I have only a foretaste now, but it is better than anything this world can offer.
The last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, closes like this:
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.¹⁰
The question Jesus asks us is: “Are you thirsty?”
If you are, there is a fountain of Life that can satisfy you.
And one day, those who drink from the fountain of Life will see the face of God, and He will wipe away every tear from their face as every evil and bad thing passes away.¹¹
And those who take the true Bread and drink the living Water—they will be satisfied.
Forever and ever.¹²
Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.
Notes
¹ This argument is a form of the “Argument from Desire” made popular by CS Lewis.
² Much of this blog was inspired by a chapter titled “Redefining Hope” in Tim Keller’s book, The Prodigal God. The language of “longing for home” is borrowed from him.
³ John 4:13-14
⁴ John 6:35
⁵ See John 17:24-26
⁶ The Westminster Shorter Catechism states that “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy him forever.”
⁷ Genesis 3:8
⁸ This quote from NT Wright in his book Surprised by Hope only hits the tip of the iceberg as to why the idea that society is progressing towards “utopia” falls short of reality: “The myth of progress fails because it doesn’t in fact work; because it would never solve evil retrospectively; and because it underestimates the nature and power of evil itself and thus fails to see the vital importance of the cross, God’s 'no' to evil, which then opens the door to his 'yes' to creation. Only in the Christian story itself—certainly not in the secular stories of modernity—do we find any sense that the problems of the world are solved not by a straightforward upward movement into the light but by the creator God going down into the dark to rescue humankind and the world from its plight.”
⁹ Christianity doesn’t take away suffering (not yet at least), but it does offer hope in the presence of suffering. It gives us hope that all of our suffering is moving us toward an End, an End in which “our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).
¹⁰ Revelation 22:17
¹¹ Revelation 21:4, 22:1-5
¹² If you want to read more about this idea (the ‘Argument From Desire’), turn to CS Lewis’ chapter titled “Hope” in Mere Christianity and Keller’s chapter titled “Redefining Hope” in The Prodigal God. Although I haven’t read the whole thing, Lewis’ autobiography Surprised by Joy supposedly gets at this idea as well.
