Epilogue
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
C. S. LEWIS12
It’s deep in the heart of every human being. It wanders around in your soul, waiting to be satisfied. It is everyone’s quest and, in this life, no one’s destination. The way you deal with it will set the course of your personal narrative. Every human being will only ever find one place of rest, one location of final fulfillment. There and there alone will the journey end, the war be over, and our hearts be given the rest they always wanted but never fully had.
When that time comes, we will get it right. Then we will be completely full, never to hunger again. Then we will experience what we have longed for at times and in ways that we didn’t even know we were longing. Then we will be happy—no, not with the temporary physical, emotional, relational, or situational happiness that fades like morning fog. Then we will be happy in a deeply contented happiness of heart, a kind of joyful contentment of soul unlike anything we have ever known before.
We will no longer be haunted by ghosts of “what ifs” and “if onlys.” Then we will not wish for what others have or lament what we have missed. Then we will no longer try to satisfy spiritual hunger with physical food. Then we will be freed from trying to calm internal restlessness with things that cause us trouble and only deepen our longing. Then we will know what we have never known before, and we will celebrate that knowledge forever.
Impressed upon my mind as I have come to the end of this book is that I have failed to state explicitly one thing that would leave this book tragically incomplete. It is a glaring and significant omission. Here it is: awe is a longing. Perhaps that doesn’t seem too thunderous to you, but it is. The capacity for awe that God has given us fundamentally explains the endless variety of human dissatisfactions. Between the “already” of our conversion and the “not yet” of eternity, we are granted greater satisfaction, but our hearts are not at rest; the war still goes on, and we crave more.
If awe is a longing, then embedded in that longing is the cry for a destination. And if awe requires a destination, then every moment of awe in this life merely prepares us for the incalculable awe that is to come. You just can’t write a book about awe and not talk about eternity. Perhaps we can find no more real and present argument for heaven than the angst that we all carry in the face of the temporary and dissatisfying awes of the present. Whether we know it or not, the awe of every human being—that desire to be amazed, blown away, moved, and satisfied—is actually a universal craving to see God face-to-face. All the awesome things in creation point me to the awesome God who created and holds them together, and his presence is the destination where my hunger will finally be satisfied. God designed this present world to stimulate awe so we would hunger for another world. On the other side, we won’t need the fingers of creation pointing us to God’s awesome glory because we will see that glory face-to-face and dwell in the light and heat of its sun forever and ever. We will finally stand in the actual presence of God, and we will bask in heart-satisfied awe, never to long again.
It is impossible to characterize how deep and expansive our delight in him will be. It is hard to find words that do justice to how completely satisfied we will be. Our hearts will finally have what they have always searched for, and our celebration will never end.
Yes, it is true; your capacity for awe is a longing for another world. It’s a craving for what this fallen world will never give you. The awe capacity of your heart cries out every day to be enveloped by the glory of God, freed from the seductive voices of competing glories. The quest for awe is a cry for the heaven that God has guaranteed for every one of his blood-purchased children.
Awe is a longing for a place where your hunger will be satisfied. Jesus has paid for and prepared that place for you. There is no greater grace than to be invited into the presence of such glory. There is no greater grace than to have your fickle heart forgiven and finally satisfied forever and ever. Amen.
The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. . . . He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Rev. 22:17, 20)