Coffee … a bagel …
When I wake up, I feel hungry. Today I had a bagel with cheese and a cup of French Roast coffee.
Later, I got dressed, , putting on a collared, buttoned shirt and khaki slacks. I felt ready to go for the day
A half hour later I sat down and talked to a relatively
new friend for about 10 minutes. It was nice, I
feel the friendship is growing.
I'm thinking about my needs. Hunger. A desire to look presentable. The need for friends. Each has a way of
fulfillment. It's the same with sexual desire, the thirst for knowledge, and many others.
For all of these there's probably a right way and a not so good way of fulfillment. For example four bagels with cream cheese would not help me.
The desire for significance is often met by achievement, success,
by loving our family, or in other ways.
The desire for knowledge is met by education and practical experience. It's met by reading books.
Interestingly, the things we desire all have a corresponding something to complete them.
Coffee … a bagel …and God?
So would the same hold true for the desire for spiritual
“connection?”
Simple observation tells us every ethnic group on earth is spiritual.
All but about 8% of the world’s population have some belief
about a power beyond what can be seen. Churches, mosques, synagogues, temples,
shrines, cathedrals, and stupas dot every nation in the world. Most of us say there is
a God although there is no agreement on who God is. The Pew Forum reports that
nearly 2.2 billion of the world’s 6.9 billion people are Christians,[1]
making it the largest single belief system in the world. That’s one in three
people who believe a Jewish Carpenter who lived 2000 years ago was God. So people definitely have a "spiritual" desire.
Once I took a dear lady to church. She did not normally go
to church or practice any religious observance. The choir sang, “The King is Coming.” Tears flowed down her
face. She commented afterwards how
touched she had been. What touched her? Was it a desire to connect with something or someone
beyond herself?
While still in Mary's womb, Jesus was prophetically called “Emmanuel” which means “God With
Us.” He claimed to be the answer to that "God shaped hole" within us. He said he was the water for our thirst and the food for our hunger.
Doesn’t it make sense that there is a provision for our
desire for something transcendent? British Bible translator J.B. Phillips wrote,
“Arguing, as we must, from what we know
to what we don’t know, we may fairly say that as food is the answer to hunger,
water the answer to thirst, and a mate to sexual desire, this universal hunger
for Truth is unlikely to be without its answer and fulfillment, however hard it
may be to find.”[2]
That’s why they called Him “God with us.” He’s there.
[1]The
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life http://www.pewforum.org/Christian/Global-Christianity-exec.aspx
[2]
J.B. Phillips, “Your God Is Too Small,” p. 71
