(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
The Good News of Endless Longing
In The Life of Moses, the fourth-century theologian Gregory of Nyssa offers reflections on the story of Moses the patriarch, finding a way to apply even the most seemingly insignificant details of his life metaphorically to a life of cultivating virtue and seeking after God. Armed with the belief that the words of Scripture have both human and divine authors, Gregory finds additional, hidden meanings in the biblical text that pertain to Christ and to his followers.
Coming to the point when Moses boldly asks God for a glimpse of His face on Mount Sinai, Gregory commends this longing for a deeper experience of God:
And although lifted up through such lofty experiences [as previous theophanies, like the burning bush], he is still unsatisfied in his desire for more. He still thirsts for that which he constantly filled himself to capacity, and he asks to attain as if he had never partaken, beseeching God to appear to him, not according to his capacity to partake, but according to God’s true being (230).1
Because God is infinite, those who seek after Him will always be on a journey toward a deeper and deeper experience of Him—this is Gregory’s doctrine of epektasis, or the infinite journey into God. This infinite journey entails an endless longing for God. Those with their eyes fixed on God, like Moses, always yearn for an even clearer vision of Him, no matter how much they have seen already. This longing exceeds their capacity, and so involves a longing for an expansion of that capacity.
When God consents to Moses’ request and allows Himself to be seen in a way He had never been seen before, He could not provide an experience that will satisfy Moses—it will merely prompt him on to further desire. A true vision of God “consists in this, that the one who looks up to God never ceases in that desire” (233). Moses will forever yearn for God (as will all of us), and in a sense will never be finally satisfied—because there will always be more of God to explore and enjoy. Gregory summarizes:
This is truly the vision of God: never to be satisfied in the desire to see Him. But one must always, by looking at what he can see, rekindle his desire to see more. Thus, no limit would interrupt growth in the ascent to God, since no limit to the Good can be found, nor is the increasing of desire for the Good brought to an end because it is satisfied (239, emphasis mine).
For those of us who have dealt with unfulfilled longings—which is to say, all of us—the idea that our desires will never end, but that we will always be longing for more, can seem painful, a cosmic let-down. What is the point, we may ask, of choosing not to satisfy the desires we have in the present, if those desires are not somehow finally satisfied in a glorious future, put to rest? Why, for instance, go without sex now if even the marriage between God and his people at the end of time does not mean we will never long for intimacy again?
Of course, this is not how any relationship works. For instance: a wedding ceremony, a celebration, consummation—none of these mean never longing for one’s spouse again. Rather, they represent a promise of presence, the beginning of a relationship in which intimacy will mature and deepen, with longing still there to lead the way—and through this longing, the capacity for intimacy will expand, providing much more fulfillment than if one had sought mere satisfaction. And whereas death ends an earthly marriage—‘til death do us part—the heavenly marriage between Christ and his Bride will be the beginning of an endless relationship with an eternal God.
Mere satisfaction of our longings keeps us small, because any longing that can be finally satisfied is small. But if we follow those smaller longings to their source, like smaller streams to a great river—this greater longing is endless, because its object is God. It is not in satisfaction that we grow, but in longing.
Beloved, the infinite journey into God means that you will continue to explore and enjoy the depths of God for eternity, forever growing in your capacity to experience Him. Your deepest, truest longings are not enemies to be vanquished, but your companions, leading you into deeper intimacy with God—and the possibility of the pain of unfulfilled longing will forever be ruled out by increasing fulfillment.
Since, then, those who know what is good by nature desire participation in it, and since this good has no limit, the participant’s desire itself necessarily has no stopping place, but stretches out with the limitless (7).
I am quoting from Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson’s translation, originally published as The Life of Moses (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1978).
Love everything about this. Very similar to what Jeremiah Burroughs wrote in The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, Christians are “the most contented [people] in the world, and yet the most unsatisfied [people] in the world.”