Searching for lasting fulfilment
Maybe it’s time to redirect our longing for a real purpose in life
How often do you meet someone who wouldn’t change a thing about their life? Very rarely will you meet someone who claims that their life is perfect — that they are completely satisfied with how things are going. And that’s pretty universal for each of us.
When we look inside we see there is something each of us desperately wants: to be looked up to by other people, to be loved by someone special, to have a purpose in life, to make lots of money. There’s always something not quite right with the way our lives are right now.
We might have strong relationships, but those relationships may not be quite as up building, romantic or supportive as they could be. We might have a good job, but we hardly feel we’re making the world a better place by doing it, or that we’re really doing anything worthwhile.
Some of our longings are the result of being flawed humans, of course. Our inability to be satisfied with what God gives us is not a good thing. On the other hand, some of our longings point to the reality that the way the world is now is not how God intended it to be.
When we long to know someone who never lets us down or betrays us, we are longing for a perfection that was destroyed long ago. When we long for a purpose for our lives, we realize we were created to fulfil a purpose, not merely to earn a paycheque.
When people long for things such as a world without suffering, a purpose for their lives, or relationships that don’t break down, it shows they, too, recognize there is something wrong with the way the world is right now. But in the end it is futile because this world is not going to get better by sheer human force of will.
Christians, however, point to their hope in God, who can fulfil the longings of our heart. God does this, not by just giving us whatever we want, but by changing our longings so they are directed toward Him instead. God is the only one who can make us truly fulfilled. We probably all heard this many times, but this doesn’t mean all Christians feel fulfilled.
Christians can have the same frustrations and resentments as anybody else. Why is there so much suffering? Why do people hurt me? Why can’t I seem to succeed in life?
I know some of us long to get married, and while we know we have a relationship with a God who will never turn his back on us, it doesn’t get rid of our longings to have an intimate, human relationship. Personally, I have written before about how I struggled with God’s plan for my life. While I know God has a plan and my life is in His hands and will never fall out of it, I still wish I knew what my purpose in life is.
So it is naive to think because we are Christians we’ll feel happy and fulfilled. Or to claim that we’ll never long for anything because we have God.
But is the unfulfilled/fulfilled dilemma really a dilemma we need to be having in our Christian life? After all, feeling unfulfilled does not mean you are not a Christian, nor does feeling fulfilled mean you are one.
Because we still live on an imperfect Earth, and we still fall short of where we should be.
Though we strive every day, our longings are never as perfectly directly toward God as they could be. As well, as I mentioned before, things on this Earth are not as they should be either. When we long for an end to suffering, we long for Christ to return and wipe away every tear from our eyes.
And when I realized this I was pointed again toward God. In the Bible, the verb fulfil is usually an action attributed to God, as in God fulfilling his promises or his word.
In that way, I can be confident that God will fulfil everything He has said, including his purpose for us in our lives.
God promises that if He began a good work in us, He will complete it, no matter how unfulfilled we feel. And though I still struggle with frustration over feeling unfulfilled, it helps to know that my imperfect actions are not what will bring me real, lasting fulfilment. Offerings is your opportunity to express thoug hts on religious iss u es. Submissions up to 750 words can be s ubmitted to religion@edmontonjournal . com with “Offerings ” in the subject line. Please include a few lin es about your faith tradition and your plac e of worship.