home > Pastor’s Desk > 2023 > April 14th > EVERYBODY IS SEARCHING FOR it

EVERYONE IS SEARCHING FOR it
Everyone is searching for it and most people do not know what it is! Those who are searching for it do not know where to look and often look in all the wrong places. The ancient book of Ecclesiastes describes this search and how its main character looked for it vainly in religion, work, pleasure, sex, and even education. The quest for it is additionally hindered because most of those searching for it can not even describe what it looks like — yet, frustratingly, they have a sense that it is something very precious that they have now lost. This feeling is if they have a memory they can not recall. All that they are left with is this gnawing sense that it is now lost and they are now lost without it. What they are unaware of is that their thwarted search is a part of sinister scheme designed to keep them from ever recovering their lost memory and being reunited with it. Just like J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth character, Gollum, their ever-present enemy has ensured that are befriended by several Gollum-like friends who continually assure them that nothing is missing, and there is no it. 

But when they sleep at night they dream about it. In their dreams they find it and their sadness turns to happiness; their loneliness turns to the warm friendship and intimate love; their sense of guilt and shame turns to the joy of being forgiven and accepted; their nagging feeling of enslavement to ignorance turns to unparalleled freedom; their awareness of being unclean gives way to an overwhelming delight of being washed and clean. But then they awake and renew their quest to find it.

“You have made us for Yourself,
O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

The it that everyone is looking for is not an it at all. It turns out that what most think of as an it is actually a He. He is Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal Son of God, the Creator of Heaven of Earth and everything within both the visible and the unseen realms. The ancient Greeks suspected who He was and called Him the Logos (John 1:1). The ancient Jews had their prophets tell them that He was the co-equal, co-eternal, co-regent (Isa. 48:16), the prophet who was to come (Deut. 18:15), and eternal Divine King who would become human and there after ever be known as the Divine Son of Man (Dan. 7:13-14).

Who has ascended to heaven and come down?
Who has gathered the wind in his fists?
Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment?
Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is His name, and what is His son’s name?
Surely you know!
Proverbs 30:4

He claimed to be The Light, The Life, The Way (John 14:6). He claimed to be the exclusive Source of Living Water for every human soul (John 7:37-38). He declared that He was the One of whom the prophets foretold (John 8:56). He stated that He was only One who could set people free from their bondage (John 8:36). Jesus revealed that the cleansing for our soul that we all long for could only be found in Him as we trusted His Word (John 15:3). He offered lasting friendship to all who would trust Him (John 15:14-15). He is the only qualified to bridge the gap between God and mankind. This is why He became a human being and offered His life (not just His death) as the atonement for our sin and guilt, the ransom to set us free, the payment of our debt to God, the sacrificial offering of His own life to overcome and conquer death itself, and the reinstatement of mankind to our rightful place of vice-regency in ruling over creation. His resurrection from the dead ensures our unimpeded access to God not just in this life – but in the life that awaits us in eternity – if we turn to Him in surrender and accept His offer of forgiveness/cleansing/freedom/adoption/new-life.

Your search is not just for temporary satisfaction. Your search for it is actually a search for Him. And your search has always been an intuitive sense that it is actually He who has been searching for you.

Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you,
and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls. 
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30

Your Pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.

1 Comment

  1. LYDIA
    LYDIA on 2023-04-14 at 5:49 AM

    Yes! Every single person who lives goes to sleep at night. In their minds they dwell on the day, the happenings, whether beautiful, exciting or sad or not. Did they accomplish what they had intended? Did it satisfy? Yet each is searching, for what? You are right Andrew, they search yet search in vain because they cannot find ‘it’. Their compass has no direction, they strive after the wind but cannot catch it. They fill their lives with things, but that never satisfies either, because there is always something to again strive for. But when their thoughts fly here and there an emptiness is found. What to fill it with? And we go round and round and round. Yet a moment can come when the Spirit wakes the emptiness of the heart, and directs to the One who can fill that void. And Andrew as you rightly wrote quoting Augustine of Hippo: “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
    And I love your last sentence where you bring it to a close that the fulfillment of our searching, as nothing else will ever satisfy, is really the search for Him, knowing in our heart of hearts as we rest at night, that it is He searching for us, His beloved.

    Reply

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