Last week, our parish hosted a concert with Audrey Assad, the Ike Ndolo Band and Catholic evangelist, Ennie Hickman. I have been planning this event since April and in all honesty, the process consisted of many sleepless nights stressing over the financial burden of the event and the logistics of it. And on the day of the event, I thought I was ready for it to be over. But last week, I stood in front of a crowd of nearly 500 people--youth, young adults, families--and witnessed the transformative power of God. Community was felt. Joy resounded. Hope was renewed. Christ was worshipped. When the night was over, the relief I thought I would experience was overshadowed by a deep desire to experience this again--to see God work in such a huge way, to see him create community where there wasn't one before, to see him transform hearts and convince us of his love. As I reflected on this and really prayed through the desire, I recognized that the presence of these feelings points to a beautiful reality of our God: that he leaves us unsatisfied (yes, you read that correctly).
When I say that God leaves us unsatisfied, I do not mean that God is somehow lacking and that we must look for things outside of him in which to find our satisfaction. I do not mean that the promise of fulfillment in God alone is an empty one. Instead, I mean the complete opposite. When we truly experience God and when we see the power of his love and the might of his mercy, we are left unsatisfied by everything else. We are left restless for him. And we are left yearning for more of him.
This reality is so contradictory to our experience of temporal things. In our day to day life, we see examples of this everywhere. Spending too much time with certain friends sometimes requires us to take a break from them. Listening to a song on repeat eventually makes us sick of that song. Eating the same foods day in and out makes us desire something different. We get burned out at our jobs. We get tired of the routine of our lives. We seek change and excitement.
But when we experience the fullness of God's love, we don't desire a break. We don't get sick of him. We don't long for something or someone different. We can't be tired of him. For when it comes to the experience of God, the more that we come to know him and be filled by him, the more we want of him. The more we want to see him. The more we recognize that we cannot be filled by anything else. We need him and him alone to satisfy the deepest and more urgent of desires.
This truth is why the Psalmist proclaims "O God, you are my God. For you I long! For you my body yearns. For you my soul thirsts". It is why St. Jean Vianney said "The soul can feed only on God; only God can suffice it; only God can fill it; only God can satiate its hunger. Its God is absolutely necessary to it". It is why Blessed Pope John Paul II said that "It is Jesus who is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you".
But we lose this perspective and are doubtful of this reality when we distance ourselves from the Almighty. We get lost in the lure of the temporal world when we isolate ourselves from the eternal God. James 4:8 says "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you". This week, then, let us be people who draw near to God and expect that when he draws near to us, he will leave us unsatisfied by anything other than him and will leave us hungering for more of him. Let us be confident that his drawing near to us will grant us the sense of purpose that we lack otherwise. And let us give thanks that in a world of things that are fleeting and temporarily sustaining, we have a God whose faithfulness is eternal and whose sacrificial love is the constant, untiring desire of our hearts.
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