One day, I was working in the drive-through during the afternoon rush. Normally, I was one of the best partners in drive, but that day I was really struggling to keep up. I kept asking customers to repeat their orders and even struggled to make correct change. The other partners had to pick up the slack, and my shift manager asked me if I was okay. I lied and said I was fine, and then I tried to talk myself down from the rising panic. “It’s okay. Just focus. You can do this. It’s just coffee. Focus.” But it wasn’t working. I could feel myself spiraling out of control.
Suddenly I realized what was wrong. Over the headset, I said, “I need someone to slide me out.” Someone stepped in, and I headed for the back room.
About a minute later, the manager came back to check on me. “What’s wrong?” she asked, looking worried.
“I forgot to take my medicine. I’ll be fine in about five minutes,” I said.
Did I happen to mention that I was recently diagnosed with attention deficit disorder? It’s a very strange thing to discover about yourself at age 37. It’s as if ten radio stations are always playing in my head at full volume and I can’t choose which one to listen to. At any time, I can tell you the gist of the three conversations behind me, the basic layout of the room, and how many squirrels have run past the window, but I probably won’t be able to repeat what you just said to me. Ritalin has been a lifesaver for me. My sermons have improved dramatically, writing a book no longer seemed insurmountable, and I was able to focus at Starbucks. Sure enough, five minutes later, I was back in drive-through and doing fine.
After I was diagnosed, I went online to study ADD. It was like having my life accurately described by perfect strangers. How did I not see this sooner? Then I started reading some posts from support groups for the spouses. I used to think Marilyn’s expectations were unreasonable. Isn’t it normal for husbands to have a panic attack at the thought of sorting laundry? Or to leave their keys in the front door? Or to routinely ignore their wives because they’re so absorbed in a project? I used to joke about being an absentminded professor, not realizing how badly my neglect hurt my wife. My diagnosis was a relief to me (“So that’s why I am this way!”) but upsetting to her (“So you’re always going to be this way?”).
I am a broken person. This side of heaven, there will always be something in my brain that doesn’t fire right. But we are all broken people—physically, emotionally, sexually, mentally, spiritually, and relationally. Most of the time, life continues on pretty well, but every now and again something happens that makes us cry out, “How long, O Lord?” As the apostle Paul says, we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly bodies, free from pain, brokenness, and sorrow. As much as I enjoy this life, I long for the glorious freedom that awaits me.1
Hindrance or Help?
I’ve talked a lot about earthly joys, from a sunset to a good meal with friends. I’ve also criticized obsessive Christianity, which says that the closer we get to God, the less the things of this earth should matter. As confident as I am about all this, I started to question myself when I reread this line from the parable of the sower. “The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature” (Luke 8:14).
Grace and Sarah think it’s fun to blow dandelion puffs in our backyard, but all I can see are weeds spreading all over the place. Is that what my book will do, spread weeds of “life’s worries, riches, and pleasures?” My greatest fear is that my message could choke out wholehearted devotion to God. Similarly, what about Hebrews 12:1, which tells us to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles”? Earthly joys may not be sinful, but don’t they entangle us and keep us from running the race? The joys of this life have undoubtedly entangled many Christians in a complacent faith.
I took some time to reevaluate my life—had earthly joys pulled me further from God or drawn me closer to him? I thought back to a short vacation I had taken with my family a couple of years ago. We went into a gift shop, and my daughters went to the toys, my wife looked at the decorations, and I went to the books. I thumbed through a history of early missionaries to the Northwest and read about a saint who had spent a lifetime establishing missions, hospitals, and schools and then died at a ripe old age in his sleep. My gut response was, “Lucky stiff. Right now you’re experiencing the fullness of God’s presence.” You have to understand, I wasn’t having a bad day—I was having a great day. The joy of the day only sharpened my anticipation of seeing Jesus.
The joys of earth can pull us away from God, but for me they are signposts directing me to heaven. They cultivate my deep longing for my Savior. This chapter is the pinnacle of the book to me because it contains the truths that have most deeply impacted me. The more I’ve learned to properly enjoy earthly things, the more I long for heaven. Because I love this life, eternity in God’s presence has gone from a distant hope to tangible reality, like something right in front of me but just out of reach.
Ironically, my least-favorite spiritual discipline has been the most helpful in developing this taste for heaven—fasting.
Fasting Makes Me Hungry
A couple of years ago, I began fasting occasionally as a reluctant response to everything I was learning about joy. “You say obeying God will make you happier,” whispered my inner monologue, “but you refuse to fast. So do you really believe it or not?” I managed to ignore myself for a while, but finally I broke down and agreed to an experiment. For a month I would fast from all food one day a week, beginning Sunday evening and ending at dinner the following day (roughly from sundown to sundown). At the end of a month, I’d see if fasting made me happier.
So did fasting make me happier? No. I have continued that experiment on and off for the past couple of years, and I still don’t enjoy it. Every Sunday evening I’m annoyed that I can’t snack, and I begin to dread the following day’s fast. Each week I look for reasons to skip the fast “just this week.” Monday mornings (already a low day for most pastors) are especially tough. I can feel the lack of food slowing me down and lowering my mood, so I pray for the Holy Spirit’s help. The hunger pains kick in around lunchtime, and I pray to remind myself why I’m doing this. By late afternoon I’m relieved to realize I only have an hour or two left. Then, regardless of what my wife prepares, Monday’s dinners always taste really good. Every Tuesday morning, I’m almost overjoyed that I get to eat a bowl of cereal.
So why do I continue? Because fasting teaches me one of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned—it’s okay to be hungry. That truth is far more profound than it sounds.
Let’s take a closer look at what Jesus said about fasting.
Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?”
Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast” (Matthew 9:14-15).
This makes it clear that Jesus expects us to fast, but notice why. It’s an act of mourning, lamenting our separation from the bridegroom. We can’t see him now, and we long for the time when we will be together again.
My last semester of college was the longest four months of my life. Three days before classes began, I proposed to Marilyn, and she said yes. The next day, she had to get on a plane and fly from Southern California back to Washington State. I tried to work as many hours as possible to distract myself from the aching loneliness, but that plan backfired. I got a weekend job merchandizing Dreyer’s ice cream in nondescript grocery stores in neighborhoods where people couldn’t afford Dreyer’s. It was a mindless job that gave me hours to think about how much I missed my fiancée. I remember tearing up whenever our song (“My Heart Will Go On”) played over a store’s intercom. I was so happy when that company folded and I got laid off.
Thinking of that semester helps me understand the apostle Paul’s deep yearning to see his Savior.
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body (Philippians 1:21-24).
What’s your gut reaction to that passage? I don’t mean just on a bad day—we all have bad days when escaping this life sounds really good. Do you, like Paul, feel eternal hunger pains gnawing away at you even on the good days? Or does Paul’s seeming death wish feel bizarre and irrelevant to your daily life?
Hunger Pains
I was nervous the first time I preached on eternal hunger pains. I was afraid that I’d be the only one who felt the things I was describing and that my sermon would be met with blank stares. Instead, I saw eager, almost ravenous eyes staring back at me as if to say, “You mean I’m not the only one who has felt that?”
I now believe that we all feel that eternal hunger pain far more than we realize. We just don’t recognize it because we call it by the wrong names. Maybe you call it emptiness. Maybe you call it restlessness. Or maybe being worn out, “like butter scraped over too much bread” (as Bilbo Baggins put it). It’s a feeling that has only increased over the years. Maybe you feel guilty because even on a perfect day, you still don’t feel satisfied. Or maybe you call it loneliness. If you’ve never been married, you may think that marriage cures loneliness, but married people know better.
Emptiness, restlessness, and loneliness are all descriptions of your eternal hunger pains. They’re constant reminders that this world isn’t your home, that it’s broken and cannot fully satisfy you. You’ve heard of the God-shaped hole that only he can fill. I’m convinced that God also put in you a heaven-shaped hole that nothing on earth can satisfy. The older you get, the bigger that hole feels.
When you feel this hunger, you can respond in one of two ways.
Something Is Wrong with You
If you believe this lie—that something is wrong with you—you will try to satisfy your hunger pains in different ways. Maybe you’ve tried ungodly and destructive remedies, such as pornography, sexual immorality, drunkenness, or drugs. Maybe you’ve tried to fix it with things that aren’t sinful, like music, books, food, or relationships. But these are also ineffective—they distract you for a while, but the hunger is still there.
Maybe you think you still feel the hunger because you haven’t found the right spiritual program or experience to satisfy it. So you seek longer quiet times, more intense worship experiences, or each new spiritual craze. Even these cannot completely remove the hunger. I’ve seen Christians respond with shock at the suggestion that spiritual things can’t fill the hunger pains, but I’ve also watched them go from revival to prayer meeting to worship concert in constant search of their next spiritual fix.2
Something Is Wrong with This World
Something is wrong here, and it cannot be fixed. It was broken at the Fall, and we still suffer the effects of that brokenness. This world isn’t your home; you were made for something better. God has filled this world with joys and delights that he fully intends for you to enjoy, but he’s also given you hunger pains to remind you how temporary they are.
Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for God has already approved what you do. Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun (Ecclesiastes 9:7-9).
“Meaningless” is perhaps better translated as “a vapor”—not bad, but insubstantial and short-lived. Reread that passage. As cynical as it seems, it is a vital reminder because if we look to the vapors of this life to fully satisfy us, they will become the weeds and hindrances that Jesus and the author of Hebrews warn against. But if you enjoy them properly, the joys of this life will draw your heart closer to heaven.
Developing Heavenly Appetites
So how do we enjoy the things of this life properly? Of course, you must begin by using them in God-approved ways, as we discussed in chapter 11, but here are two other things that have helped me tremendously.
Cultivate Hunger
As I said, fasting has taught me that it’s okay to be hungry and that this world can never completely satisfy me. About once a week, I’m reminded that in the same way I hunger for food, I continually hunger to be in heaven, face-to-face with my Savior. Fasting helps me live in a continual cycle of enjoying this life and then being reminded that it can never fill me. Rather than numbing, ignoring, and running from your eternal hunger pains, cultivate them, knowing they are pointing you to something beyond this world. “For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”3 Give fasting a try. Seriously. Barring a medical issue, not eating won’t kill you. Keep it attainable by just fasting two meals and snacks—from after dinner one day until dinner the next. When the hunger pains start and you instinctively reach for a treat, ask God to remind you that it’s okay to be hungry. Don’t be surprised that physical hunger can help you cultivate eternal hunger. We frequently fail to appreciate just how much our bodies affect our spirits, but God doesn’t.
Even if you can’t or won’t fast, the next time you feel that sense of emptiness or longing, don’t rush to fill it with something. Take a moment to remember that it’s okay to be hungry and ask God to help you cultivate your longing for eternity.
Cultivate Joy
Complacent Christianity numbs hunger pains in its search for joy. Obsessive Christianity cultivates hunger pains to the exclusion of joy. Radically normal Christianity, however, cultivates both hunger pains and joy. I said in the previous chapter that there are some things that we can learn only in pain. My editor, Terry Glaspey, observed that there are also some things that we can learn only in joy. God works both good and bad things “for the good of those who love him.”
Here’s an interesting thought. Because cultivating earthly joy helps cultivate a taste for eternal joy, I can’t help but wonder if joyless Christians will struggle to embrace the joys of heaven. They spent their lives fleeing happiness here, so they might need some time to adjust to pursuing it there. For me, the joy I’ve found in this life is what makes me long so desperately for the next. As I mentioned earlier, I can’t understand heaven, but the stuff of earth gives me glimpses. It’s like going to Costco and tasting a little sample of a gourmet food. The sample isn’t enough to satisfy, but it lets me know I want more. And I do want more, more than this world could ever provide.
I hope you understand that when I talk about heaven, I primarily mean the complete fullness of joy in God’s presence, not the place itself. I want to clarify that because technically speaking, we won’t be spending eternity in heaven. That’s just one of the many misunderstandings we have about eternity.