OUR DECEPTIVE DREAMS OF FULFILLMENT

Have we been the object of a cosmic joke? Perhaps! We have entertained many dreams of fulfillment, which have all left us unfulfilled. We’ve dreamed that if we could achieve enough success or social acceptance, we could accept ourselves. We’ve also dreamed that if we could obtain a certain wife or husband, the right job with a six figure income, our dream house or….we’d remain perfectly happy. However, our dreams have often been fulfilled but we are left without fulfillment.

The reputed wisest man on the earth, King Solomon, committed himself to solving this greatest of perplexities. In the course of his investigations, he had obtained all of his dreams – more success, esteem, riches, power, respect, peace, and women than anyone else. Yet he remained miserable with his life:

·       For the wise man, like the fool, will not be long remembered; in days to come both will be forgotten. Like the fool, the wise man too must die!  So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. (Ecclesiastes 2:16-21)

Solomon’s wisdom quest was unable to penetrate the veil to observe another life following death. Without this piece of the puzzle, he remained absorbed with the disappointments of this life. Consequently, his perplexity continued.

In contrast to Solomon’s conclusion, the late Oxford Professor, Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963), observed:

·       “All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it — tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear.”

Lewis didn't expect the "glimpses" to fulfill." They were never supposed to! Although Solomon also had the “tantalizing glimpses,” he had hoped that they would suffice, and when they didn't, he was left in despair. However, mere glimpses or fragrant scents do not suffice by themselves; nor does a gourmet meal, at least, not for long. Consequently, this life is no more than a gourmet meal punctuated by long intervals. Instead, Lewis would have us regard such a meal as a foretaste of something ultimately fulfilling.

Lewis had also argued that since the mere objects of our desires are so abundantly supplied here, our desire for a permanent love, joy, and peace will also be fulfilled. We hunger, and there are foods to satisfy our hunger. We thirst, and water satisfies. We tire, and we have recourse to sleep, and we have other urges for which we find fulfillment, even if only briefly. Why then is it that this world only provides hints of what we long for?

Perhaps our hunger for love, joy, and peace will also find its ultimate and eternal fulfillment but in another life. Perhaps, then, there is a reason why this world will not fulfill us. It was never intended to fulfill. Instead, it was intended to simply offer us “tantalizing glimpses” of another world, which should become the object of our dreams. Undoubtedly, had we been fulfilled by what this world offers us, we wouldn’t seek further to find a loving Creator and Redeemer waiting for us.

We have a choice. We can live this life as if it really can offer us fulfillment, or we can use this vehicle of life to explore other possibilities.