Today you will crave many things. You will at some point crave food because your stomach growls (mine just did). You may crave for the person in front of you on the one lane road to speed up, turn, or vaporize (maybe not the last option). You will crave going to the bathroom (just keeping it real). You may crave any or all of the following: rest, encouragement, to be understood, to be left alone, to feel like your day was not wasted.
Why do we crave? And why do we crave more than the physical appetites we have? We crave emotionally, relationally, and yes, we crave spiritually. We have this yearning for more. We want a happy ending to life, some sort of fulfillment.
We want to matter. In fact, we crave that. But why?
As you go through your day today take a little time to look around. Notice the natural world around you. It is amazing is it not? Soak in the wonder of our world—the plants, the animals, the fact that as you drive your car does not suddenly fly off into the air like a missile, that you have eyes to see, and a mind to think.
This is a wonderful world, filled with life and vitality. And harmony. Plants, animals, the ocean and the shore, the sun and moon, the earth’s rotation, so many things we do not think of unless something goes wrong (like sitting in a hurricane) flow with such consistency.
And yet, though we people fit well in this world, we are different. Look at the trees—they do not fret over the amount of their retirement funds. The hummingbird in my backyard does not wonder why evil exists. But we do. A groundhog makes a home in the dirt, but we make entire civilizations.
We are different. We do more than the rest of creation. We think more. We crave more. But why?
You and I were created in the imago dei (the image of God) because of the missio dei (the mission of God). In Genesis the Bible says we, unlike anything else in reality, were made by God, like God, and like God—we are rational, spiritual, and we crave more than survival. God made us to crave. And what we crave above all else is to worship. Every person worships….something.
St. Augustine said it like this in a prayer: “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until we find rest in Thee.”
Pascal observed that there is in every person a God-shaped hole, a vacuum only He can fill.
We were created to be a part of a bigger plan, a bigger Story.
Okay, but if that is so, you may ask, why is so much in my life and in others so screwed up?
This world is amazing. And it has been broken. God made us to know Him and worship Him. But we have chosen to craft idols of our own making so we have (we think) a greater control over our destiny.
Sin is more than bad stuff we do or bad choices we make. Sin is in our nature, a cancer that affects everything, including our judgment. And thus we have regret, because we really do not always make sound judgments, do we? We create our own idols to worship to replace the God who made us—how silly is that, really? Do we really think we can fill our lives with true joy and fulfillment with material things and stuff we control, when in our hearts we crave so much more?
You see, God made an amazing world, and put us in it to worship Him. But this world has been broken by sin. Unlike anything else in reality, you and I yearn—we yearn for a happy ending. We crave a life that matters. We go to Starbucks and hang out there because we want to be part of something bigger, a part of community, something more. Yet God made us for something so much more than sitting in a coffee shop or staring at a TV watching Jersey Shore.
Let me put it this way: the thing we really crave is not a thing. It is a person. Relationships matter to us because of the ultimate relationship we need. What we need is Someone to rescue us, to replace the idols of our own making with what we really seek.
Sometimes we think the Bible is mainly a book of morality, a list of does and don’ts. No, the Bible is a book of reality, a mirror to show you who you are and who you were created to be.
Bottom line: we need Jesus. We need a Rescuer to save us from our sin and to save us from ourselves. And in some cases to save us from religion we use to keep us from Him. We do not need a religious ritual, a moral code, or a spiritual fix. We need to see reality as God intended.
Jesus Christ is not simply a moral policeman . He is God. He became a man, to identify with us, to do for us what we could not do. HE CAME TO FIX WHAT HAS BEEN BROKEN. And truth is, you are broken. So am I.
We all have unique features. Some of us are rich, some poor. Some socially awkward, while others are socially adroit. Some of us use rare words like adroit, others look up those words on google. But we have something in common, all of us.
We crave more. And tomorrow I will talk about this a little more. Come with me on this journey, won’t you?
Copyright 2001 Alvin Reid
