The Search for Meaning
A couple of years ago, I watched a series on Netflix and a movie on Amazon in which the protagonist in each was an atheist – depressed, lonely, snarky, and absolutely interesting, but desperately looking for… longing for… meaning. It was sort of sad to observe the writers’ attempts to guide their characters in their pursuit for meaning in a life without God. I had a heavy heart as I reflected on how their efforts, no matter how well put together the stories were, couldn’t ultimately anchor their characters in anything permanent. They each had a longing no temporal solution could ultimately fill, though both sought an optimistic ending. One did better than the other in moving Godward. In this life there’s always hope.
The longing for meaning is a universal human experience. It’s wired into us. Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” Our hearts are wired for eternity; we have a God-given awareness that there is more to life than what we see.
When Meaning Is Untethered
Here’s what I’ve noticed: when people seek to fill this void with anything but God, the results aren’t always despair, though that can certainly happen. More often, meaning becomes relative at best. It’s transient. It’s not built upon anything more solid than preference in the moment. Therefore, it can be tossed to and fro, as Paul says, with every wave of emotion, or thought, or external influence. It’s not tethered. Or to change metaphors, it’s not anchored in something permanent.
The protagonists I watched illustrated this perfectly. Despite their intriguing personalities and clever dialogue, they kept grasping at things that couldn’t hold them steady. Relationships. Achievement. Self-actualization. Each pursuit offered temporary satisfaction but no lasting moorage.
Living Water
In John 4, we encounter the Samaritan woman at the well. She was searching for meaning in relationships and found herself repeatedly disappointed. Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14).
Here, Jesus identifies himself as the only source of true and lasting fulfillment. Not just emotional satisfaction for a season, but deep, soul-level anchoring that holds through every storm.
Made for Another World
C.S. Lewis famously wrote, “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” Lewis himself knew something about this relentless divine pursuit. In Surprised by Joy, he describes his conversion by saying he was “the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England,” brought to faith by what Francis Thompson called “the Hound of Heaven.”
Thompson’s poem captures this beautifully:
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
And yet the poem continues with God’s tender pursuit:
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.
Lewis picked up on this imagery, describing God as “the transcendental Interferer,” the Hound of Heaven who pursues us even when we’re running the other direction. This is the hope I saw flickering in those stories I watched, God’s prevenient grace, going before us, ever-chasing, ever-beckoning us to come to him.
You Were Made for This
St. Augustine prayed at the beginning of his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” That restlessness isn’t a design flaw. It’s a homing beacon. It’s meant to drive us toward the only One who can satisfy.
The stories I watched were reminders of what happens when we seek meaning apart from God, not always despair, but always instability and impermanence. Meaning untethered from the eternal is like a boat without an anchor, drifting with whatever current happens by.
But they also highlighted a vital Christian truth: there is always hope in this life because God’s call is ever-present. His grace goes before us. Even when we’re running, he’s pursuing. Even when we’re seeking satisfaction in dry wells, he’s offering living water.
The question isn’t whether you have a longing for meaning. You do. We all do. The question is: where are you seeking to satisfy that longing?
Questions for Reflection
- Can you identify areas in your life where you’ve sought (or are seeking) fulfillment apart from God? What has that pursuit looked like, and where has it led you?
- How does understanding that “eternity is set in our hearts” change your perspective on the restlessness or dissatisfaction you sometimes feel?
- What’s one practical way this week you can redirect your search for meaning back toward Christ?
Prayer
Gracious God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Forgive us for the times we’ve sought satisfaction in things that cannot hold us, for anchoring our hopes in temporal things rather than in your eternal love. Thank you that you are the Hound of Heaven, pursuing us even when we run, offering us living water even when we’re digging dry wells. Help us to recognize the deep longing within us as your invitation, a call to come home to you. Give us courage to redirect our search for meaning toward Christ alone, and grant us grace to share this hope with those around us who are still searching. May we rest in you and find the fulfillment our souls were made for. In Christ we pray. Amen.
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