“With Him rest the noblest hopes and dreams of men. All the longings for immorality that rise and swell in the human breast will be fulfilled in Him or they will never know fulfillment.”
As I read this quote from Man: The Dwelling Place of God a question came to me: If God is completely in control of human emotion and feeling, what happens to those desires that rise up in me that aren’t strictly centered on Him? This happens everyday. Desires for food, desires for a promotion, sexual desires, desires for community and friendship; all of these are inevitably tied to the very fabric of our lifestyles. Desire is inescapable from daily living as is the cause of the actions that we eventually perform. For example, I desire breakfast when I wake up in the morning. I’m wired so that my stomach will naturally be unsatisfied until I fill it with something. Although the string of events is not analyzed in my head, the rise of my desire for food is temporarily satisfied when I eat cereal or a pop-tart.
Notice the word temporarily. This is noteworthy because this gives rise to another question, which quite often happens when you delve into discussions of Christianity. Are there different sorts, or types, of desire? I feel temporary desires everyday. We’ve listed them already. These desires as human beings – food, shelter, clothing – are but satisfied only temporarily. All of us have experienced this. When we’ve tasted that delicious steak or had a glass of an expensive wine, there is a momentary satisfaction that is fleeting – that is, it loses it’s ability to provide a lasting happiness. There is no end in this kind of desire. Humans, the way we’ve been created, cannot find that pot of gold over the rainbow by the objects of this world. In fact, the objects of this world are not “good enough” for the affections of our desires. Our deepest longings were not meant to be ultimately satisfied by the things of this world.
So, what do we do with these desires that are seemingly not meant for this world? If you’ve ever read C.S. Lewis, you know that he loves to touch on this subject. He says in his Argument for Desire,
- “A man’s physical hunger does not prove that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man’s hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will. A man may love a woman and not win her; but it would be very odd if the phenomenon called “falling in love” occurred in a sexless world.
