Deep Cravings

I recently have become keenly aware of the cravings of my heart for joy. All I say or do or think is a frantic scurrying of my soul to lay hold of this allusive thing that I was undoubtedly made for. Of course, many of us have learned efficiently the art of masking these agitations. We have in our world a great army of false vines to keep the storm at bay. I was made clearly aware of the workings of this in myself today in two specific instances.

1) While waiting in line at a sandwich shop, I sensed arising in myself a general disturbance of joy. The common feeling of discontentment springing from a source I couldn't specifically point to and say, "there is the pollution!" But regardless of where it came from, I started to calmly and frantically look down at my phone for a new text, a missed call, or something else; anything that would present a new variable into the course of the given moment to change the undesirable emotion I was experiencing. From the outside, I looked quite normal. Normal enough to not call attention even to myself if I had not been given a grace to see it.

2) Again, over a cup of joe in a local coffee shop, the deep craving for joy crept over me and the panic with it. What an effective drug technology can be in such a case. Or at least for a few mindless minutes. I checked my facebook, checked my email, checked my facebook again, and then ordered a book off amazon. All this, a busy scurrying of my soul to find a source that would bring back a sense of joy.

But as Lewis explains, joy is not what we really want. We do not desire only the mental happenings that we call the experience of "joy". Any emotional response is simply a response to the object beheld. The nature of the thing beheld is what makes something beautiful or lovely, bitter or grievous. Rather, we desire the object which when beheld brings the joy that we crave. For the Christian, the object is God. In his presence is fullness of joy. Yet how slow to learn am I that I turn to text messages and missed calls when seeking out joy. I want to live for the experience of joy, but not as one who must try everything the world offers to see if joy comes marching along with it, but as one who has found the object from whom all delight flows from.
  
When a child's cries out for food, a parent will frantically scan the room for a toy or pacifier to subdue the outburst. But a good parent, a parent that has learned the tactics of appeasing a child's desire for substances will have learned that a pacifier or a lullaby will never appease the need for food permanently. It may mask the outburst for a while, but the craving will only become stronger the longer it is refused real, solid food.

Oh that I would learn to skip the pacifier and lullabies and go straight to the food!