16. Where should I look for God?
14. I sense a longing for something that I cannot explain - actually, it's more like a void that can't be filled. Is this normal?
Very normal.
This is a natural phenomenon, born of your rapport with your Creator. Augustine calls this earthly life, "the time we have for prayer, while in our eternal home, we will only have time to praise God."35 "You were made to be a contemplative because praying "is a spiritual thing and is all the more enjoyable the more fully it is done according to our nature."36 "Because praying and hoping are constant realities of human existence,"37 "they are the only hopes we have among the many ills of this world.""
Our natural desire for God presents us with the dilemma of having to change ourselves, and in doing so we alter our relationship with God. Through prayer we "turn to him alone"39 "in order to reach him."40
15. Isn't it expecting too much to think that anything can truly fill us in this life?
Prayer, the exercise of your relationship with God, is what fills that void, and it is the only natural filler. All other substitute loves will let you down. Praying is as natural as breathing, because, "prayer is the breath of the soul."" More than a void, St. Augustine calls it an "abyss." "For what is more profound than an abyss? We see what men do by the movement of their bodies, the words they say; but who can penetrate another's thoughts, who can see into the heart? What is going on inside someone else, what he is inwardly capable of, what he does in his interior, or what his intentions are ... who can comprehend that? Do not believe that there is a man so profound who can fathom the depths of his own interior."42 "There let us dwell in hope, since we do not yet dwell in reality ... And that which was our hope will become our reality, it will be our repose. We shall be visible to ourselves."43
Our interior thirsts for God, sometimes without our intellect knowing exactly what it is searching for.
"You are great, 0 Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is your power, and of your wisdom there is no end. And man, as a part of your creation, desires to praise you, man, who carries within himself his own mortality, that witness of his sin and still more, the witness that you resist the proud. Yet man, but a particle of your creation, desires to praise you. You move us to delight in praising you; for you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in you."44