I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
Albert Bogle
August 08, 2018
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Psalm 78: 23-29
23 Yet he commanded the skies above,
and opened the doors of heaven;
24 he rained down on them manna to eat,
and gave them the grain of heaven.
25 Mortals ate of the bread of angels;
he sent them food in abundance.
26 He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens,
and by his power he led out the south wind;
27 he rained flesh upon them like dust,
winged birds like the sand of the seas;
28 he let them fall within their camp,
all around their dwellings.
29 And they ate and were well filled,
for he gave them what they craved.
Psalm 78 suggests how passing stories down the generations of God’s miracles and provisions for his people are intended to inspire each new generation to trust God. In practice, the writer thinks it doesn’t seem to always work. He relates how even knowing and experiencing the providence of God we are people who are never really satisfied.
Perhaps that is the flaw in our human nature that will eventually be the strand that brings healing in eternity, when we find our rest in God himself. To be totally content and constant in our faith, is surely to have reached the journey’s end.
Instead perhaps the call of God on our lives is to make us restless and ill at ease. The temptation may well be to try and fill the empty part, the searching part, with something that cannot last.
Let’s not place the ephemeral things of life in the spaces that only the eternal presence of an Almighty God can fill. Be content with your dis-ease.
Perhaps the U2 song, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” is the honest response of a heart longing for more but knowing ‘the more’ can never be discovered in this life but that the longing is the guarantee that there is more to come.
Prayer:
"Almighty God,
you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you:
pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself,
and so bring us at last to your heavenly city
where we shall see you face to face;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever."
This collect is an adaptation of the new collect prepared by the CofE Liturgical Commission based on Augustine's "quia fecisti nos ad te et inquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in te".
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