Soul Hunger

The 30-year-old son of faithful Christian parents, Mark was exemplary in his honor for them, his love for God and his sacrificial service to God's people.  Months before heading to Macedonia as a missionary, he learned he had lung cancer.  Within the year, he was gone, leaving behind grieving parents, a wife, and 3 beautiful, very young daughters.

Cathy has been a godly Christian woman for as long as anyone can remember.  Her only dream in life has been to marry and establish a Christian home of her own.  At age 58, she remains single with little hope of ever seeing that dream realized.

George and Maggie raised 6 children with but one desire: for each of them to walk in the fear of the Lord...to love Him all the days of their lives.  As adults, half of them have abandoned the church, some even denying Christ altogether.

Joel married a quiet Christian woman who was a source of strength and stability for him.  At age 35, she began losing her mental clarity and shortly thereafter slipped into full-blown paranoia and dysfunction which prevents her from leaving her house.  Joel is powerless to help her.

Veronica and David's second child was born with cerebral palsy.  Throughout his 18 years, they have had to choose to put him under the knife 9 times, risking his life in order to improve the quality of it, knowing that he doesn't fully understand and without guarantee that the surgery will make a significant difference.

A paroled rapist entered the home of a beautiful, sweet, 21-year-old Christian virgin and violently subdued her so that he could have his way with her.  She died the following day from the injuries he inflicted.

A newly-wedded couple lost 2 babies within the first 18 months of their marriage.

Women who long for children remain barren.

Spouses betray one another.

Siblings reject one another.

Friends suffer with unalleviated, long-term pain and illness that cripple their ability to enjoy life.

These things happen.  All the time.  Hopes and dreams fall in pieces to the ground and we can't do anything about it.

When dreams of material prosperity or success or health shatter, we rationalize that perhaps we wanted these things selfishly for our own ease and comfort.  These are "lower-order" dreams, afterall, that we probably should have held more loosely in the first place.  So we deal with it.

But the truth is, sometimes our "higher-order" dreams shatter and the fulfillment of righteous desires is withheld.  Can it ever be wrong to long for godly children, loving marriages, safety from violence or fruit borne from sacrificial ministry?  Of course not. 

Then what is the point of striving for these good things which continually elude us?  What is it all about, this shattering of godly hopes and dreams?  Each of the scenarios I outlined at the beginning have happened to faithful, upright Christians I have known.  But WHY??

When our desires are torn from us, or are never met, we discover an emptiness inside ourselves...an emptiness that feels an awful lot like death.  What are we supposed to do with that?

Our response could be one of denial in which we run faster and strive harder to fill the void in ways that bring us temporary relief.  But this only helps until we experience the next significant loss.

We could respond with arrogance.  "What did I ever do to deserve this??!!" But this leads to anger toward God and toward any human agents that contributed to our disappointment.  Lingering anger produces bitterness which prompts us to withdraw from life, either socially or quite literally.

We could respond by wallowing in self-pity, demanding that someone see, understand and feel our pain...and then DO something about it!  This results in an off-putting self-absorption which drives others away rather than  eliciting the sympathy and support we long for.

All too often, we Christians respond by hiding our emptiness and refusing to allow others to see our struggles.  We pull ourselves up by the proverbial bootstraps and go forward with a Stoic determination to be OK.  We convince ourselves that we are experts at handling pain.  Keep going!  Stay strong! Relieve the pain, if you can...live through it, if you must.  That is what a Christian who really believes Romans 8:28 does!  Right?

Wrong.  There remains another option for the Christian and I believe it is the response for which we should strive and the one that speaks most fully to the primary purpose of our shattered dreams.

Acknowledging the pain and emptiness that follow disappointment or tragedy is a first necessary step.  Hurrying to fill the void, nurturing our anger, wallowing in self-pity, or Stoically pretending these things don't hurt us, are not Spiritually-mature responses and none of them allow us to reap the benefits that could be ours.

So...once we face up to it and stop pretending...then what?

In his book, Shattered Dreams, Larry Crabb suggests (and I agree with him) that when we feel the emptiness of broken or unrealized hopes and dreams, we begin to experience what I have come to call "Soul Hunger."  This hunger drives us to seek the Lord with a fervency which we never have and otherwise would not.  We are forced to foster new hopes and dreams which are less transitory.  In a profound way, we begin to desire God.

To be cont'...