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A Constant Search For Meaning

“Our heart is restless until it rests in Thee, O Lord.” —St. Augustine of Hippo

A person is always on the search for happiness, comfort, pleasure from any earthly value, namely, education, economics, politics, or from any other value that is on the surface of the earth. He/she looks for these things which are outside of oneself. A person seems unable to learn the lesson that whatever he/she achieves and takes from the earth can never satisfy one’s innermost being, nor fill up the soul, because the deepest portion of the soul is RESERVED ONLY for God our King and Creator. Nothing can truly fill up our soul but God; for the spirit of a person deep in the soul is reserved only for God. Hence unless one resolves to go back to God in spirit within the soul, one will never find rest.
 
 A person is never satisfied and will never be satisfied with whatever he/she holds dear on the surface of the earth that is not God Himself. Why? because a person is not made for these things or these values. He/she is made for God alone. This is what the First Commandment is all about. “Love God with ALL your heart, with ALL your soul, with ALL your mind and with ALL your strength.”
 
A deeper reason for this lack of satisfaction is because a person is at the crossroad of his/her own being. One is made in the image and likeness of the Unlimited God yet placed in a limited container of space and time (where we physically move and live in a period of time). One’s feeling of lack, feeling of dissatisfaction is coming from one’s nature of being too close to space and time (material things and attachments) and not realizing one’s “unlimited portion” of oneself. 
 
The “unlimited portion” could be explained that people are not superhuman. They get tired physically and mentally that could result to desperation, then sickness of the body. In order to resolve the many unfulfilled desires, it is most beneficial for a person to go and unite oneself with the UNLIMITED BEING (God) in the spirit within the soul. What is this Unlimited Being?  It is God Himself, the Creator of all things visible and invisible.  All things exist because of God, and He is unlimited.  Their feeling of limitation is a calling to come and be one with the UNLIMITED.  In other words, a person’s feeling of incompleteness and dissatisfaction is a call to complete oneself in God.
 
Nothing that the soul does and tries to achieve can fill up the hunger of a person because there is still an area in the soul which the soul nor the world can never fill up – and that is the area of the spirit which is reserved ONLY FOR GOD. ONLY GOD CAN FILL IT UP WITH HIMSELF. 
 
What is the spirit? The spirit (ruah, breath of life) is the life of God in every person. Genesis 2:7 says, “The Lord God took soil from the ground and formed a man out of it; He breathed life-giving breath (ruah [Hebrew] or spirit) into his nostrils and man became a living soul.” Therefore a person will never be completely happy if God will not make that living soul see the fullness of one’s union with God in the spirit of man. This is what Jesus meant when He said, “What does it profit a man even if he gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his soul?”  Where is God in the spirit of a person? In each baptized Christian, God becomes present within the soul through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. “The Spirit of God becomes one with the spirit of man.” (Romans 8:16). The Catechism of the Catholic Church in paragraph 1265 teaches, “Baptism … makes” a person “the temple of the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is emphasized because He is sent by God the Father, as St. Paul in Galatians 4:6 writes: “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father.’” This union is attained through faith and surrender to the Word of God.
 
A person is made for God. He/she is made in the image and likeness of God. One can never be truly oneself if one is not going to be what one has been made to be. So unless a person resolves to be one with God, he/she will never find rest from all human longings. He/she is like a fish out of water. The Unlimited (image and likeness of God) in oneself will always demand fulfillment in one’s limited being (space and time). As St. Augustine said, “Our heart is restless until it rests in Thee, O Lord.” What does this mean? Whenever people experience incompleteness, a longing, boredom and keep on searching anything in the world, it is God who calls them from their inmost being to be in union with God because only God can fulfill that missing piece. “Come to me, all you who labor and are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
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