Deuteronomy 4:29-31 If from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress…you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. For the Lord your God is a merciful God.
People run around in life chasing many different mirages. Some chase pleasure, others wealth and some fame. This chasing in our lives boils down to four things. We all seek: to be known, to be seen, to be heard and to be fulfilled.
No one wants to live apart from others. We have heard it said between lovers that they have found their “soul mate”, someone who knows my heart, my thoughts. They have found someone who knows them. Other people seek to be noticed by peers. They want to impress other people and to be evident to everyone when they walk into a room. They want to be seen. The person with a new insight or revelation in their heart wants to be heard. They seek to be found relevant by other people or groups. They want to be heard. Lastly, people want to find meaning in their lives. They want their daily employment or volunteer service time to have meaning which brings delight to their hearts. They seek to find fulfillment.
The search is universal. All people, in all times and in all places seek these elements of life. St. Augustine (354-430 AD) wrote of man’s universal search for God:
Man, a little piece of your creation, desires to praise you, a human being ‘bearing his mortality with him’, carrying with him the witness of his sin and the witness that you ‘resist the proud’. Nevertheless, to praise you is the desire of man, a little piece of your creation. You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.
Confessions by St. Augustine, pg.3.
