I want, so I take. I take and consume. I consume and am filled. Yet somehow I am full of dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction then increases desire. The cycle repeats.
If I think what I crave is what I need, then I may be a fool. There will always be something else, something more. Nothing I crave that this world offers has yet to fulfill these desires beyond an immediate fix. I try and try to find the next thing: the next car, the next house, the next spouse, the next kid, the next job, the next friend, the next adrenaline rush, the next tastiest food, the next financial gain...yet it all leaves me wanting more…wanting, wanting, wanting. Always pursuing the next thing until one day, at last, as will all, I'll find myself among the dead. Meaningless, it’s all meaningless.
What hope, then, is there for this unrelenting, unfulfilled desire? How can the craving be satisfied? How can the emptiness be filled with something that doesn’t leave more aching? “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will never go hungry, and he who believes in Me will never be thirsty” - Jesus (John 6:35). Boom. Drop the mic. End the craving. Fulfillment has arrived and it’s name is Jesus. He is the One Who invites all: “Seek Me and live, allow Me to carry your burdens, drink and overflow with life, be satisfied...eternally.” This is the offer He gives us.
Is your craving finding no end? Is your consuming leaving you with more desire? Jesus gives the answer to our need: Himself. He is the only true satisfaction. His way is the only way that brings fulfillment.
So may we find ourselves increasingly aware of the state in which our earthly pursuits leave us. And may we find ourselves replacing those pursuits with the only One worthy of and capable of fulfilling them completely.
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
- C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
Passages for further consideration: