Everyone and their mother is looking for "fulfilling" work nowadays. I think about it as I ramble around inside this house, searching for something to do. Fulfillment is like the filling of a jar, right? The entertainment that absorbs its viewers is very often not fulfilling, the very opposite, in fact. It whistles in one ear and out the other, a temporary distraction, not wisdom-giving for living.

I don't even know that we, who claim to, are actually looking to be "fulfilled" or even if we're looking in the right places. I don't think we are.

We are looking for fulfillment within ourselves, within the meeting of our own desires and pleasures. But what can we give ourselves from within ourselves? The filling of the crepe must come from outside the crepe, so to speak.

The definition of "fulfill" has changed a bit over the decades.

The dictionary defines it like this: "to gain happiness or satisfaction by fully developing one's abilities or character."

But it used to mean simply (or complex-ly) "to complete."

The former revolves around the individual to an extraordinary extent. It is all about self. The latter is about accomplishment, about finishing, about a task.

But let me go back to the individual to say that completing yourself cannot be done by searching for happiness in anything per-say, it is done in seeking the good of others. A paradox. The good of yourself is the good of others. The good of others is your good (though it may not feel/look like it at the moment). Your good cannot be found by seeking your good. When you forget yourself, you fulfill yourself. So we can conclude that it's best to think about yourself as little as possible, contrary to messages all around us.

Often we seek our completion, our "fullness of joy," in the things society has taught us to pursue: in career, in wealth, in a significant other, in our friends and social media followers. But they are not ends in themselves. We are the end; they are the means. We want all things personalized, specialized, and aligned with our passions. From our coffee order to our Spotify playlists to our conversations, everything is about the indomitable ME. And I'm guilty of it too, to be sure!

All this me, me, me "fulfillment searching" is really missing the point and emptying us instead. We can't fulfill ourselves, and we drain ourselves by "following our hearts" to the end of the yellow brick road.

Ultimate satisfaction is not found in the immediate satisfaction of desires.

Erin Powe

We will fail ourselves with each try! Culture and media shout it out us through story and opinion, telling us to "believe in ourselves" and "follow our hearts."

The sum of such rhetoric is that pop culture is telling us that they've found meaning; they've found the answer. Gold strike! And their answer is "to do what you want to do. No responsibilities!' [1] There is no big, demanding, objective TRUTH. There is only you, and your truth, standing isolated on sinking sand. It separates us from truth and from each other, and especially from God.

These false fruits are continually crammed down our throats as we choke on drugs, lose children and adults to suicide, as depression rates soar, as we watch tv headlines blaring sorrows about schools and shootings. We've lost our true meaning, and we who search for it are ridiculed.

We weep for the losses and yet continue to cling to the ideas that create the nightmares. These mares of the night, galloping out of screens, manifesting as death in homes and communities, in the world. Lies have become the very fabric of a culture, of this nation, and the fabric's tendrils have twisted into a noose, a noose for beauty and virtue and hope and love, a noose for God. "He is outdated. We need him no longer. We are quite independent of such 'crutches!'" we shout with sardonic smiles.

We have hanged TRUTH, that great pursuit and bedrock, and she swings helpless from the Hollywood letters, for people to mock and belittle.

But truth exists! And we've hanged it because we are angry with it telling us what to do. Truth isn't its own source. This truth comes from God. And Jesus is God, revealing Himself on earth. He is truth and abundance of life, He who is the manifestation of God's love and the proffered salvation of a sinful world, who took all the world's suffering on Himself and who says,

"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." [2]

We are taking the wrong road. If our pursuit is truth, personal fulfillment, love for others, they are all decent aims, but none of these can be the ultimate foundation of life. They don't hold up. We don't hold up. We are not perfect, and there is suffering ad evil in this world, and we will wear ourselves out to death. We fail, and our human, imperfect love runs out in face of evil. Our incompetence and sinfulness stand stark in the horror of malevolence, in a torn world partially warped by us.

But completeness, in things, people, and ourselves, is possible. Restoration is foreseeable.

Complete restoration cannot come from our hands, for we are cisterns, cups, who are drunk dry by life and its demands, by our sin and our hardships. We can only do so much. And of course, we are all dying.

But there is a bubbling fountain of life, a fountain of blessing and love and creation. And His name is I AM, the Lord God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Three in One, Yahweh. He fills us up, fulfills us, with His love. If we ask, He does not let us run dry. He overflows, needing nothing, and flows into us. It's time to wander off the yellow brick road and into his arms. He is every question and every answer. He is the Way that we are seeking. He is the joy we have only hoped for. This is the Jesus, who poured out His blood to wash us white of sin and failure, that He might personally know us. How can we not forget ourselves in the light of God's beauty and grace? We are fulfilled, even as we have come to care nothing for fulfillment, to care nothing for ourselves, but only Him. We are created for Him, and "we are restless until we find our rest in Him." [3]

Christ is restoring us, as we give our lives to Him. He is making all things new. And there will one day be a new heaven and new earth, where He will wipe every tear from our eyes. This is the deep fulfillment our hearts hurt for, the one we seek in the self-help books and the back-alleys and mansions of earth. Creation groans for restoration, and it is coming, by His hand.

Scripture sings it:

"You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." [4]

We only find completeness in knowing Jesus Christ, not in ourselves.

Our culture cries out in pain and rebellion, for it will not accept God's answer: I AM.

I could have ended the post a couple times so far, but there are some amazing lyrics in a song by Andrew Peterson that I believe will cap this off well, or maybe bring up more questions...

"When you lay me down to die
I'll open up my eyes on the skies I've never known
In the place where I belong
And I'll realize His love is just another word for Home
I believe in the holy shores of uncreated light
I believe there is power in the blood
And all of the death that ever was
If you set it next to life
I believe it would barely fill a cup
'Cause I believe there's power in the blood...
... But just remember this
When you lay me down to die
You lay me down to live." [5]

[1] Ben Shapiro [2] John 14:6 [3] St. Augustine [4] Psalm 16:11 [5] "Lay Me Down," Andrew Peterson