Tuesday, September 23, 2014

the wanting

I have all these "hungers": desires, longings, wishes.  They well up inside me.  When I am attentive to them, they fill me til I think I might burst. 

I hunger physically.  This is the most basic hunger.
I read because I have an insatiable desire to know the thoughts of others.  I want to connect. I want to see what beauty comes from their minds. 
I also read because I want to understand.  I crave knowledge; I am endlessly curious.
I long for delights: to laugh with friends and family, to discuss what is near to our hearts, to create memories.
I long to write.  I long to spill out my thoughts, test them, hold them to the light, unwravel them, and understand myself.
I wish to travel: to see that which I have not seen before, to marvel at the sights that overwhelm me even in their picture form.

Yet, in all these things, there is a common thread.  My God is interwoven into all of it, and all of it is encompassed within His being.
He gave me a material body with which I hunger.  
He gave the talent of writing to many; this allows them to share their imaginings.  He gave us imagination.
He gives us knowledge and allows us to peek at all the intracacies He has created.
He knit me together, fashioned my personality, talents, and desires.  He understands me and knows all my thoughts.
He created the world; He created the sights that astound us.

In these material things I will always need more.  My stomach will utilize its contents relatively soon after I eat.  I will finish a book and want for a new one.  I will learn concepts and move on to new or more in depth ones.  I will seek new experiences and to see those people I love again when I have  parted from them.  I will constantly develop new thoughts with which I will need to grapple.  I will never see the entire world, and so I will always want to see new places.

Perhaps this needing of "more" is innate within each of us in varied ways.
He is more. He is all. He Is
So in the words of C.S. Lewis, "If I find in myself that which this world cannot satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world."
We were made for the new Heaven and the new Earth when we were remade.
All other hungers are subhungers; they point to the greatest hunger of all creation.
I hunger most of all for my God.  That is the greatest hunger.