The Girl And Her God: Down The Hole And Back Again

In a previous article, I talked about an empty place inside of me—a hole I’d spent much of my life trying to fill. I knew the experience well because I’d lived it. I just couldn’t explain what that “hole” actually was or why it was there.

That question sent me back to Scripture.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has set eternity in our hearts, yet we cannot fully understand His works.

I looked up the word eternity and read things like infinite, unending, beyond our horizons…

I came to understand “eternity in our hearts” as a longing for what lies beyond this temporary world.

That reminded me of something C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity.

He said that if we have desires no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. The experiences themselves were never meant to satisfy us completely. They were meant to point us toward the real thing.

You can’t satisfy a lasting longing with something that doesn’t last.

A vacation is wonderful. But while you’re enjoying it, you already know the flight home is coming. A party is full of laughter, but eventually everyone says goodbye and goes home. That new car is shiny for a while, then it rusts.

These are wonderful things—but they’re already becoming memories while you’re living them.

The gifts are so beautiful that we wish they would last.

But they don’t.

That’s why they can’t bear the weight of our deepest longing.

So enjoy them fully. Receive them with gratitude. Just don’t ask them to do what they were never created to do.

Later I read one of the most eye-opening sentences I’d come across:

The longing is permanent because it reflects what we were created for.

That led me to another question.

If the longing reflects what we were created for, then what exactly is that?

As I thought about that question, I remembered something I’d read in We Would See Jesus. The author kept coming back to the idea that we were created to “see” God. That sounded beautiful, but I realized I wasn’t even sure what it meant.

I discovered that to “see” means much more than simply looking at.

It means to walk with, to know and understand, and to love through action.

If you ask me, “seeing” God sounds a lot like being in a relationship with Him.

But I looked it up to be sure.

A relationship with God is more than believing He exists, and it’s more than following a set of rules.

This was actually a relief because I’d always felt like that couldn’t be all there was to it.

A relationship with our Creator is choosing to join your life with His. Instead of living independently according to your own wisdom, you willingly submit to His authority.

I believe this begins by making it your priority to know Him more deeply because everything else flows from there.

As you get to know Him and see how beautiful He is, you begin to value what He values, love what He loves, and pursue His purposes because you trust that His ways are wiser and better than your own.

Obedience goes from being,

“Why should I?”

to,

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Eventually, you begin to reflect His character and point attention away from yourself and toward Him.

The more I studied it, the more I realized these weren’t separate ideas at all.

They were simply the natural progression of a relationship.

This, I realized, is what it means to glorify God.

I know that because I remembered something John Piper said:

“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

Then I realized the loop.

The unsatisfied longing leads us to seek.

Seeking leads to relationship.

Relationship leads to transformation.

Transformation naturally results in glorifying God.

The longing that began the journey is finally satisfied—not because it disappeared, but because it found what it was searching for.

When I see that progression, I see someone fulfilling the very purpose for which they were created—glorifying God and enjoying Him at the same time.

I think that’s what it means for the longing to be satisfied.

On a somewhat side note, it’s beautiful that something which could seem selfish at first actually isn’t.

When we hear that God calls us to glorify Him, it’s easy to wonder if He’s simply demanding attention. But God isn’t needy, insecure, or driven by ego. He is already complete.

God isn’t seeking something from us that He lacks.

God calls us to glorify Him because He knows that knowing Him is the very thing for which we were created—and therefore the only thing capable of satisfying the longing He placed within us.

And here’s the cherry on top: as we reflect His character, our lives become a beacon, pointing others toward the One who can satisfy the same longing they’re trying to fill.

I started this study trying to explain a hole.

I ended it realizing that it wasn’t a hole at all.

It is a longing placed within us by God that only He can satisfy because He made us for Himself.

It seems like God placed the longing within us and withheld complete understanding for a very specific reason.

Throughout Scripture, He continually invites people to seek Him because He desires to be known.

Maybe that’s why He placed eternity in our hearts in the first place—not to leave us restless forever, but to make sure we don’t stop searching until we find Him.