Longings

Three Longings

God set eternity in us: a hunger for what we can sense and never reach. That hunger takes three shapes. Each one pulls us forward, and each one comes with a fear.

“He has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”

Ecclesiastes 3:11

A teenager driving at night with the window down, smiling at the road ahead, a red key fob hanging from the ignition.

The Infinite

Possibility

The longing to reach past what you know, toward the next horizon. The teenager driving with the windows down on a summer night.

Its fear: getting stuck.

Ecclesiastes 1:8

An old man standing at a gravestone, bending toward a red flower at its base.

The Indelible

Permanence

The longing for what lasts: to build something that outlives you, to be loved in a way that does not end. The old man standing a long time at his wife’s grave.

Its fear: loss, and being forgotten.

Ecclesiastes 2:16

A woman holding her drawing of a house up against the finished house, a red clip at the top of the drawing.

The Ideal

Perfection

The longing to close the gap between what is and what should be. The architect holding her drawing up against the finished building.

Its fear: falling short.

Ecclesiastes 7:20

These longings keep us searching, and they show us our limits. Neither is a flaw: we are made this way. The question is how to live with it.

Next: the four lenses