Every person seeks for fulfillment in this life because seeking fulfillment is what defines us as human beings. We seek something higher than the animals. We are not content with mere existence. We are passionate about determining our way. Seeking fulfillment is our protest that we are not a machine content to merely function. So what is wrong? Why are we always seeking fulfillment but not finding it?
“Dad, I am bored,” she said looking up. We were walking along a wide walkway meeting many people rushing by with happy and excited expressions. She was quite young at the time. Her sister, also young, but three years older, was content with the thrill remembered from ten minutes ago and the anticipation of the next one just ahead. I was content just to be walking hand-in-hand with my two little girls through Disney World. We each found a momentary fulfillment in different ways. We would like to find a steady, all-the-time fulfillment, but it is not here; even in the best of activities. The problem seems to be that real life soon gets in the way. We all become bored or frustrated. The moments when we feel fulfilled begin to work against us because we become more entrenched in our search and more frustrated in our failures.
We are not saying that fulfillment is unreachable, nor are we saying that we should not want it. It is part of who we are. God created us with the ability to define our course of action and then to accomplish something useful for ourselves and others. We are social beings who can work together to do more than any one person could do alone. We are creative beings who can envision and make something that was not even thought of before. We can dream of better things and better times. We do not like to settle for less than we want or less than we need. We long for relationships that give us a sense of being real and being whole. God created us for fulfillment.
The want of fulfillment is found in the life questions that we ask. The questions of human life center around such things as “How can I be a significant person?,” “How can I matter to others?,” “How can I be successful?,” or “How can I achieve personal satisfaction?.” We might also ask “How can I enjoy life to its fullest?,” “How can I find my place in life?,” “How can I get the respect of others?,” “How can I get more praise?,” “How can I determine and realize my purpose in life?,” or “How can I find an abundance of personal pleasure?.” The greatest questions, however, and in some way the reason for all the preceding questions, are “How can I find the greatest person for me to love?,” and “How can I be loved by the love of my life?.”
The problem with fulfillment is looking for it in all the wrong places. Our great need for fulfillment works against us. We are either frustrated by the things and the people that get in the way of our pursuit of lofty goals or we reach those goals and find them empty. Trying harder makes it worse. Being fulfilled is not a result of work, activities, or acquisitions.
Pursuing Life:
We seek fulfillment in life through people, things, and activities. Some people seek fulfillment through the high road of art, music, literature and intellectual pursuits; or the middle road of achievement and success; or the low road of pleasure and self-indulgence. We get pleasure from our pursuits and experiences, but the short-lived fulfillment is soon gone and we are left to try harder or eventually to give it up. When fulfillment is something we receive without self-effort, all areas of life become enjoyable without strain.
Pursuing Significance:
Almost everybody wants to be significant, to count for something, or to be remembered. It could be the pursuit of good looks, a great personality, people pleasing, clothing, status, talent, skill, knowledge, virtue, or good works. Moreover, most of these same people know that none of these pursuits produce an abiding sense of being a significant person. We know that we must be more than just a fading grass (see I Peter 1:24). However, no one seems to care about our pursuit. They are all too busy pursuing their own sense of significance to be more than casually interested in ours. They may praise us for their purpose of self-gain, but we know they do not mean it. The best we can hope for in this world from our fellow sojourners is a pretense of caring. Self-centered mankind will never be significant in the eyes of other self-centered people. We find the fulfillment of significance only in the eyes of God.
Pursuing Love:
Almost every person seeks fulfillment in love. Listen to the music of the ages. Those works that are not about God have been mostly about love in some form. The highest aspiration of every person is to love and be loved. We sing the songs and dream the dreams and look for some way to get noticed by someone, that there may be a chance for love. Love is the greatest power on earth, and it is worthy of our proper pursuit. Unfortunately, it is the cause of the deepest heartaches as love is lost or pursued and not found. Our hopes in love and life fall short of our expectations.
Pursuing Achievement:
Who would not want to achieve worthy goals? We are socialized, educated and trained for just that purpose. No one sets out to do the opposite, to be a failure; yet to make achievement our life’s goal does not secure fulfillment. We come to the end, and no one cares. After the third generation, great grandchildren do not even know what we spent our whole life doing. We can invest our life in achievement and still end up lonely and unappreciated. The huge investment just does not pay its proportional dividend. So, we should want to achieve worthy goals, but not to obtain fulfillment. The fulfillment that we receive from God will accompany the pursuit and make it all the more enjoyable.
Pursuing Goodness:
Okay, so how can seeking fulfillment by being good possibly be bad? Isn’t it true that being good is the end in mind for life? That if we are good we have fulfilled our purpose? No, that is not the end in the mind of God. Our purpose is to find a full life in God, to find significance as His child, and to live in a loving relationship with Him and others. Goodness is what we are made to be in Christ so that He might present us to the Father. So it is a means and not an end. Making it an end will elevate us from others and leave us alone.
Pursuing Relationships:
Right relationships are the real purpose of life. We naturally seek them. We work to attract people to relationships by our goodness and our achievements. However, as we pursue relationships for our happiness, we find ourselves in conflict with the other person who is doing the same thing. We cannot fulfill both other people and ourselves, and they cannot fulfill both us and themselves. We end in frustration.
Summary:
In this blog, we have used a few pursuits to illustrate the futility of finding fulfillment through self-effort. We must live a fulfilled life. We were created for just that. The surprising part is that the pursuit of it spoils everything. Fulfillment is found only in God. Since the rebellion of mankind, we have to find our way back to God through Jesus to receive it. We will show in the next blog that self-satisfaction is not only empty but is also destructive.
Please continue reading these numbered blogs. We at Rescued For Love are not looking for our fulfillment from any response. Our only purpose is to continue the conversation.