I have noticed a trend in today's culture of attempting to
assign more depth or meaning to any given thing than that thing inherently has.
Whether it's the romance in a relationship, the beauty of creation, the thrill
of travel, etc., humankind has overemphasized the ability of external things to
fulfill inward longings. We, as a species, do this in our pursuit of the ever elusive
"more." We desire a deeper plane of life, experience, and feeling and
hope to find it in the imagery set before us.
While life is beautiful, and its experiences are meant to be
soaked up and enjoyed thoroughly, I find it selfish that we ask something
incredible to be more incredible just because we need it to be. To clarify, we
ask something that is already beautiful and valuable in its own right to
satisfy a part of us it is incapable of satisfying.
We all have a deep need that must be satiated before we can
fully appreciate the various wonders, complexities, and beauties of life. It
cannot be the other way around. It won't be appreciating life that satisfies
our souls; it will be the satisfaction of our souls that enables us to
appreciate life. God designed us with a deeper need for Him that, if left
unmet, will permanently skew our view of all He has made. And no matter how hard
we try to assign a little more "magic" here or there, we will never
discover what we are looking for. It is this mindset that leads to
brokenness in our selves, our relationships, and our worldviews.
The saddest thing is that, when we ask creation to meet a
need that Creator is supposed to meet, we strip creation and Creator
of their value in our minds because we have attempted to redefine their job
descriptions. It's like asking a tree to bark like a dog or a cow to yield
human children. While a tree has bark, it won't be emulating schnauzer noises
any time soon. And while a cow is a mammal, we won't be awaiting the sonogram
results to find out whether this precious new addition to our world will
be Bos taurus or Homo sapien. Both a tree and a cow excel at
what they were created to do, but they will be terribly under-appreciated if we
expect them to fulfill needs they weren't designed to meet.
This kind of thinking has cost so many people the warm
company of other human beings and the gracious peace of God. It damages our
capacity to enjoy the universe God has made. And at the end of this
philosophical track, we are still not satisfied.
I implore you, readers, to let God fill that indescribable
need for "more" inside of you. Then, and only then, will you be able
to appreciate all that He has made for what it is, not for what you want it to
be. When we fix the inside, the gems we are fortunate enough to adorn our
hearts and enrich our lives with will have perfectly crafted settings. That
kind of beauty needs noting extra.
