God,
Man and the Void
A poor girl looks
up to heaven and prays, “Oh, that Thou wouldst take away these rags and give me
a change of apparel”. God answers and miraculously provides her with a pair of new
clothes. She receives it with gladness and thanks Him who so mercifully
provided. Then, she looks at her feet and wonders, “Why have I not the same delicate
shoes worn by the well-heeled girls?” God, in His wondrous goodness, again sends
her shoes. She daintily walks into the city and as she passes by a girl she oft
envied, she caught a whiff of expensive perfume. “God, will it hurt to give me just
one bottle of fragrance?” He graciously provides it again. In the months that
followed, she adds a horse-drawn carriage to her request, for it only befits
one carefully bedecked as her. She prays for rich friends, as her circle needed
to reflect the glory that God had so resplendently bestowed. She even pleads
for a home in the highbrow district so as to be close to her new friends; and
on and on her desires grew.
But,
why does God give in a manner that soon leaves us asking for more? Why must we
ask Him before He gives us everything He knows we desperately desire? Why does
He make His prophets declare blessings on us, yet leaves us waiting on Him to
receive them? Does He like to whet our appetite for the fun of it? Is prayer a
charade to keep man inoculated from the realities of his helplessness? Are
faith and hope a cocktail to render us dependent on a God we have never seen? At
one point or the other, these questions cross the mind of the believer who
ponders his walk of faith and the workings thereof.
At
the root of every prayer of faith is a desire; at the root of every desire is
some dissatisfaction and at the root of every dissatisfaction is God working to
draw us closer to Himself. If man goes to bed satisfied that he has had a
fulfilled day, he doesn’t wake up the following morning with the same feeling.
Instead as his opening eyes greet the new day, his heart instantly fills with a
desire to have another fulfilled day. They say this desire - this void we seek
to fill - is the source of hope and the object of man’s life; I beg to differ. I
believe instead that the Hope and Life of all men is at work to achieve a far greater
purpose. Not knowing this truth is the source of disillusionment and depression
for many, as life appears to them as an empty race for much of the same.
People
often say that God is good, but they truly want only so much of Him; it is the
good things that many want. Open any prayer book or ask any friend for his
prayer list and I guarantee that what you will see are requests for the good
things of life – both noble and selfish. We crave an item on our prayer list as
though we will die if we don’t get it. But the moment our hands close around
the desire, we move onto the next item and crave for it with the same
earnestness; thus our insatiable desires grow. Could it be that God adds
something to every fulfilled request of ours? I have news for you; it might
shock you if you have never pondered it: Not only does God initiate desire in
man, He also initiates an ‘emptiness’ with the fulfilled desires, and this in
turn initiates more desires in him. It brings to mind the multitude in the
wilderness who so craved flesh that they were ready to stone Moses for it.
Indeed, they had their fill of bird-flesh that it was coming out of their
nostrils but they had something else instead of the satisfaction they expected
– a leanness which clung to their souls.
Abraham
was so blessed with everything a man could wish for save an heir. God then heightened
his desire by promising him a son. Consequently, Abraham faithfully served God
and sought His face for eleven years but no respite was to be found for his
void. He took matters into his hands and, together with Hagar, he bore Ishmael;
but God had him drive out the boy. By the time his promised son came, his void
had been filled that he could willingly sacrifice Isaac as proof of this. Like
him, David earnestly sought kingship over Israel in response to God’s anointing
over his life. He would spend years roaming the wilderness as he waited for the
appointed time. When his moment fully came to be crowned king his void was
already filled that he turned to God for permission to accept the position. The
ambitious boy who faced Goliath had become a contented man in God’s hands.
Adam
and Eve were quite the opposite, like many of us today. They had everything they
could ever imagine except the one mysterious fruit in the midst of the Garden. This
must have created a restless dissatisfaction within them, each time they walked
past the fruit. Eden was fitted all the pleasures of life, but God added this
void to make them seek what was All-Important. They didn’t. I fear that many go
through life making the same mistake. God can give us Eden, but He will add a downside
to it so that we can draw near to Him. How many of us will seek God at all if
we didn’t some gnawing concerns that we cannot fix ourselves. And even if we
will still seek Him without such concerns, God will never give us what will
replace Him or the pursuit of Him. All the decades that Abraham was seeking a
son (because the fruit of the womb is God’s reward) God kept repeating to Him,
“I am thine exceeding Great Reward!” No wonder when Isaac came, he could easily
give him up at God’s request. Like Paul, he was content whether abounding or
abased.
Many
of the miracles we receive and most of the prayers that are answered will have
a downside because the yearning of every creature is not any creation but its
Creator. Angels dwell in glory and, over the aeons, they might be bored stiff
with the heavenly wonders that men marvel about. But one thing still has them
in awe: God Almighty Himself, that each time they behold Him they erupt in
deepest praise crying, “Holy, Holy, Holy!” They dwell in their Eden but are not discontent because they
have learnt to be captured by the God who dwells in the midst of it; not the fruits therein. It doesn’t cost God a
thing to provide every want on earth or to fill the void in every man, at the
snap of a finger. But, I surmise that doing it in a stepwise manner allows us
to realize that it is He we really need and that it is He who fills man’s
deepest desire.
What
then? Shall we say it is wrongful to desire good things? No, our Father
delights in generously bestowing them. Shall we seek only Him and nothing else?
No, but as Christ said, we must seek Him first. He didn’t say to Abraham, “I am
thine only Reward”. He said, “I am thine exceeding Great Reward”. Therefore we
must desire Him as such for if He gives us all we desire and we don’t give Him
ourselves, He will keep sending a leanness to our souls. For our God creates
vacuums so men may fill them with Him.
