Dissatisfaction. It’s a curious disease that plagues the perpetual battleground of the human mind. On some base level, everyone feels there ought to be more. Culture paints a broad picture of this disease, often expressed as carnal greed of one sort or another. The holiday season usually brings out well-meaning champions of anti-avarice expressing themselves on Facebook or pulpits, warning against the moral or political traps of living in a greedy, capitalistic world. Again, it’s the cultural pendulum at swing and not unexpected. However, this only addresses the physical, material half of the symptoms.
But what of spiritual dissatisfaction? Some may be surprised to learn that this form of the disease manifests itself just as openly as material greed. The level of cultural saturation is on par with that of materialism, once you identify the roots. The human condition longs for something more than the reality imprisoning every physical being. It’s why we have a culture obsessed with aliens, superheroes, and magicians. The Age of Enlightenment, the advent of the religion of science, was supposed to remove superstition and mysticism. Reality became confined to what can be observed and measured, and scientific study vastly increased man’s understanding of the natural world. This almost worked to appease the ought.
Not really. It didn’t come close.
Job 11:7 asks a poignant question: “Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?” The answer is a resounding no, but that does not stop mankind from longing to experience something beyond the restraints of our reality. The truth is, we long for something more that our existence, beyond what we can observe and measure; a deep longing for the mysteries of God is part of our genetic makeup. Always has been. Since enlightened people can no longer look to God for the answer to this longing, they settle for man-made fantasies involving superpowers or ETs. Call it just entertainment. Dismiss it as just cinematic pop culture. The fascination, however, reflects a fundamental desire to break free of this physical mold and experience something from behind the curtain.
Dare to take a peek?
1 Corinthians 2:6-12
Among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.