Filling the Gaps
by Bethany Kaldas
‘When You said, “Seek My face,”
My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”’
Psalm 27:8
I know a lot of regular people who think they are terrible human beings—I’m sure you do too. You might even be one of them. It’s easy to understand why. After all, we get front row seats to our own misdeeds, every cutting remark, every envious thought or impure desire. If we look at humanity in general, we see selfishness and greed sown into almost every action, every word, and when we dare to look within, we can see the monstrous weeds those seeds grow into.
Lately, I find myself asking: Why do people do evil in the first place? If I’m being perfectly candid with you, it was my own sin that inspired such a question. I constantly find myself in the dilemma Paul captured so perfectly, of doing what he willed not to do and not doing what he willed to do, but in my own life. I follow impulses I know will end badly, boarding trains of thought destined for ruin. And I find myself asking—why? Why do I do these things?
I know, I know—we’re selfish. I’ve asked this question before and that’s the answer I most commonly receive. Humans are innately selfish, we’ve evolved to put ourselves first. But even if that’s true, I still don’t think that can fully explain sin. After all, some—perhaps most or even, all—sins are really sins against ourselves more than anyone else. Especially in modern times, we’re constantly doing things we know are bad for us. We are not only enemies to each other, but our own worst enemies too. And a lot of the time, we know that very well.
So…why? And Where does it come from?
‘Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.’
James 4:1-3
We have a desire that is not sated, a longing not fulfilled. This verse from James implies it is a desire for pleasure—and I do not deny that at all—but if pleasure really is the missing piece, then why are we not fulfilled by sin? Why does the glutton not stop once he has cleaned out his fridge? Why don’t the proud content themselves with the admiration of their loved one, instead of continuing to demand it of strangers? If pleasure was what we needed, then sin should be self-defeating—once we have sinned, we should sin less. So why does reality tell us the opposite?
‘You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.’
St Augustine of Hippo
I want to say that every human who ever lived has been seeking God their whole lives—every single one. Just wait—hear me out.
We were made in the image of God—in the image of Love Himself. Naturally, all those made in His image seek love. Surely that is easy enough to accept—there’s not a person out there who doesn’t need to be loved, it’s just part of what we are.
But we are fallen—we are broken. We are full of cracks and holes and we want nothing more than to fill them—but our image is distorted, deformed. We are filled with a desperate need…but we do not remember what it is for.
And so, we search.
‘And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.’
C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
We seek to be filled, so we overeat, or eat the wrong things, or abuse the planet and each other in the hopes of finding something that will satiate our empty hearts.
We seek to be strong, so we demean others, or force ourselves over them, or spit on them, we hate them, we murder them with words and works.
We seek to be happy, so we act rashly for short-term gain and long-term loss, we follow our instincts and impulses, blind guides that promise a thrill but leave us empty and more broken than we began.
We seek to be loved and to love, and so we lust, we lie, we flirt and demand attention—wherever we can find it, even if we know it will end in heartbreak and even deeper loneliness.
We seek to be valuable, so we puff up, we focus on ourselves, we neglect our kin, we envy others, we sabotage them, we sabotage ourselves and then expect pity and wallow in the dread that nobody cares.
I say these of myself first and foremost, but I believe most, if not all, of us can sympathise.
If you take any sin, and you look at it hard—you dig deep down to the roots, I think you’ll find that sin is not, in fact, a desire for evil. It is hamartia—it is ‘missing the mark.’ It is a misplaced, misremembered, deformed desire for the only One Who can fulfil that desperate yearning…it is a desire for all God is, but without God Himself. It is a failure to remember that He is what we need—that He is our Beloved, that He is our satisfaction, our strength, our joy, our love and value. He is everything—He is oureverything. But we forget, we seek Him without Him—we seek after gifts, forgetting the Giver, forgetting that it was Him, and nothing else, that we actually need.
‘Man is a hungry being. But he is hungry for God. Behind all the hunger of our life is God. All desire is finally a desire for Him.’
Alexander Schmemann (For the Life of the World)
Consider even the very first sin of man. Was the great crime of Eden disobedience? Was it gluttony? Lust for power? Was it the desire to be like God?
No, it could not be—we are calledto be like God—it is the goal of a Christian life. That wasn’t the problem. The desire to be like God is only an issue when you want to do it apart from God Himself.
Alexander Schmemann goes on to describe the forbidden fruit as such in his book, For the Life of the World:
‘Not given, not blessed by God, it was food whose eating was condemned to be communion with itself alone, and not with God.’
Alexander Schmemann (For the Life of the World)
The nature of sin has not changed. The brokenness of humanity is not only the holes we now bear, but our desperation to fill them with all the wrong things. Our hearts are all fractured—if someone says otherwise, they are in the worst denial. Sin is like trying to fix a broken mirror by shoving a wooden plank into the cracks—it only makes the holes bigger, it only distorts the image further.
We all desire to be whole, but it is not possible to be whole without Him—because He is the piece of us that is missing. Perhaps, if we recognise this, we will be one step closer to actually searching for Him. And when we do, we find Him waiting, with open arms, full of all those things we need to be whole again…because it was always Him.
‘O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup;
You maintain my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;
Yes, I have a good inheritance.’
Psalm 16:5-6