The Quest

Have you ever had one of those seemingly perfect moments in life when everything just came together?

It may have been that stunning sunset. That beautiful star-filled night. That special moment with someone you love. You may have thought to yourself, I always want it to be this way. But it wasn’t.

Maybe you thought that when you reached certain goals you had set in life, that would bring a complete fulfillment to you. But it hasn’t.

Or when that right person came into your life, the man or woman of your dreams, surely that person would satisfy the sense of longing deep within you. But he or she didn’t.

Have you ever felt happy and fulfilled and wished that your life could last forever? But soon you realized that it won’t.

Why don’t things last? Why is life so frustrating?

From the day that you were born you have been on a quest. You have been searching for that something more. Deep down inside you sense that life must have some kind of meaning and purpose beyond mere existence. Maybe you’ve even wondered if you are the only person who feels this way. You aren’t. Deep down inside we all are searching.

You haven’t found that real thing or filled that void in your heart because you are a living soul. You see, the "real you" is not just that physical body you are living in right now. The "real you"—the part that is eternal—is your soul. It’s that spark that gives you your uniqueness. The Bible says, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being" (Genesis 2:7, nkjv, emphasis mine).
The reason you have this soul is because you have been uniquely made in the very image of God himself. And in each human being made in his image, God built this sense that there is indeed more to life.

The Bible explains that God has "planted eternity in the human heart" (Eccles. 3:11). That is why mere earthly pursuits, achievements, and pleasures will never quite fill that void within us.

Oxford professor C. S. Lewis described this longing we all have for "something more" this way:
All the things that ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of heaven. Tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear . . .

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world . . . Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy, but to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.

You are not the only one who is interested in this topic right now. So are millions of others—especially baby boomers. You may have noticed that many of the most popular books today deal with the subjects of the soul, the meaning of life, and what happens beyond the grave. As the inevitable passing of time marches on, we face constant reminders that this body we live in won’t last forever.

Michael J. Fox, star of the Back to the Future movies, has Parkinson’s disease. This came as a great surprise to him and many others, as Parkinson’s is generally diagnosed in people more advanced in years than the relatively young Fox. He said, "I’ve realized I’m vulnerable no matter how many awards I’m given or how big my bank account is. The end of the story is you die. We all die."

Though my generation used to sing the anthem "Forever Young," we know that we are not. Take the Rolling Stones, who have now become the "Methuselahs of Rock" and are closer to sixty than the sixties. For years they have performed classic songs like "Time Is on My Side." But if you’ve seen them lately, you would find it hard to agree. And time is not on the side of most of us either.

Generation Xers are also searching for something to fill this void. Many have witnessed the futility of the lives of their parents, who came from one of the most narcissistic generations ever to exist. Having seen their parents’ never-ending chase after an ever-elusive personal fulfillment, many in this generation feel cynical and disillusioned about life. The suicide rate among them is alarming. They are on this search for "something more," as well. We all are. It is the search of the soul.

At one time I thought alcohol would fill that void inside of me. That surely only exacerbated my problems and then created some new ones. Maybe you thought that drinking and partying would do it. But by now you have either burned out on that—or you will soon.

These are but cheap substitutes for the "real thing" that you have not yet found. Why is that?

You see, there is something in man that material things and possessions can never satisfy. That is why there are so many miserable successful people. How often we read in the morning paper about a celebrity who has just checked in to or out of a rehab clinic. Or we hear about some star who was so miserable that he or she committed suicide.

Why is that? It is because the person "has it" but knows that what he has isn’t it!

You would think after the first million dollars or so, that would do the trick. But it is always the "bigger and better" syndrome. If you make a thousand, you want two thousand. A million, five million. Five million, twenty million. And so forth. As King Solomon so wisely observed many years ago, "Just as Death and Destruction are never satisfied, so human desire is never satisfied" (Proverbs 27:20).