We Will Never Have Enough

I was reading Eccelesiastes yesterday and came across the following verse:

“Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless” (Ecclesiastes 6:10).

It got me thinking — how is that any different than any other desire? The same could certainly be said about power, fame, sex, success, etc. I think the same could even be said of God. You are never going to wake up one day and decide that you have had enough of God. That you have had your fill of God. Thus, would it not be equally true if Solomon had written, “Whoever loves God never has enough of him”?

But if that is true, then why should we chase God instead of money, sex, power, or any other desire our idolatrous hearts can devise? If they all leave us wanting more, what is so special about our desire for God? Why is he worth chasing after? Why is the pursuit of him not also meaningless?

I believe the answer lies in a crucial distinction between our desire for God and our desire for everything else — particularly in why exactly they leave us wanting more. Earthly desires leave us wanting more because they are too small. God leaves us wanting more because we are too small.

God made us to desire. It is why we exist. We were designed to glorify and enjoy him. In order to help us fulfill this chief end, he fashioned our hearts with an ever-increasing capacity for enjoyment, so that we might never tire of enjoying him.

With that in mind, it is obvious why earthly desires always leave us wanting more. No finite, created thing can satisfy an ever-increasing desire. Lovers of money will never have enough because even unfathomable wealth remains finite and will ultimately fail to meet an infinite desire. When we expect the things of earth to entertain our ever-expanding capacity for enjoyment, we confirm C.S. Lewis’ famous words:

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased” (C.S. Lewis).

But God leaves us wanting more for an entirely different reason. We will never have enough of God because we are too small and he is too large. God is infinite, and he offers infinite joy. But we are finite creatures that do not have the ability to enjoy him fully. God leaves us wanting more because we know that there is always more to be had. As our capacity for enjoyment grows, we may glory in him more and more. Yet we will never be satisfied because his glory will always outpace our capacity. We will spend eternity learning to enjoy him, but we will never succeed in enjoying him fully. We will spend eternity climbing the mountain of his infinite majesty, and the views will grow more delightful the higher we ascend, but we will never reach the summit. We will never exhaust the fountain of Christ’s glory.

“We can never by soaring and ascending come to the height of [the love of God]; we can never by descending come to the depth of it; or by measuring, know the length and breadth of it . . . Let the thoughts and desires extend themselves as they will, here is space enough for them, in which they may expand for ever. How blessed therefore are they that do see God, who are come to this exhaustless fountain! . . . After they have had the pleasure of beholding the face of God millions of ages, it will not grow a dull story; the relish of this delight will be as exquisite as ever . . .” (Jonathan Edwards).

Hence, there is a completely different flavor to these two kinds of desires. It is true that we will never have enough of either. But compare the implications of that fact for a life spent pursuing each category of desire. Your soul shrinks and expands to the size of the beauties it beholds. So when you chase after small, finite earthly things, your capacity for joy atrophies. You are always left wishing there was more and lamenting the fact that you can never get enough. But when you chase after God, your capacity for joy stretches and grows. You are always left overwhelmed by the knowledge that there is yet still more joy to be had and glorying in the very same fact that you will never have enough.

If you whore after idols like money and power, you will retreat into a superficial shell of what you were made to be, trying desperately to entertain yourself with pitiful little mud pies like an ignorant child. But if you chase after God, you will be drawn into something much bigger than yourself, broken by his majesty, undone by the recognition that you have more to be thankful for than you could ever possibly give thanks for, exulting in the anticipation of an eternity spent in the presence of God, climbing further up and further in to the fullness of joy at his right hand, where there are pleasures forevermore.

"There is more, more than we can stand, standing in the glory of a love that never ends. There is more, more than we can guess, more and more, forever more, and not a second less" (Andrew Peterson).