What is your deepest desire? If your answer is a temporal or worldly good, ask yourself what end benefit you hope to receive from that good. Once you obtain it, will you be completely and permanently satisfied? What else might you want? Continue along this line of questioning until you arrive at your ultimate desire, the one thing that provides absolute and unending contentment and joy.
After completing this exercise, you might realize that the things we think make us happy provide limited enjoyment for a fleeting period of time. It is unwise to hinge our hopes on some earthly possession or life circumstance; it is unfair to rely solely on another person for our welfare. Tangible pleasures, human achievements, wealth, health, honor, and power all leave us seeking something more, something better.
Our human limitations prevent us from fully grasping the innate beauty and vastness of God’s plan. “God has made everything appropriate to its time, but has put the timeless into their hearts so they cannot find out, from beginning to end, the work which God has done” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). God bestows in us this inherent sense of something beyond our world, of something beyond our present. He designs us with the need to search for meaning, to find truth, and to live purposefully.
Saint Thomas Aquinas suggests that only a perfect and infinite good can totally and eternally gratify our persistent longing for truth, fulfillment, and pleasure. This all-consuming hunger is infused in our hearts by our Creator, so that we may be drawn toward Him. Getting to know and love God, the supreme and everlasting source of everything good, leads us to our final goal of attaining true happiness in the highest good. Pope Saint John Paul II notes that “It is Christ you seek when you dream of happiness.”
The Bible reveals an unceasing pattern of God working for the wellbeing of His people. As pure love and pure good, He creates us to flourish in blessed friendship with Him and to experience His happiness and joy. Our identity as children of God is at the core of our existence. While our other roles and relationships change, our union with God is meant to sustain us forever. Catholic tradition relays that Saint Thomas Aquinas is so certain of this that when Jesus asks him what he would like as a reward, he replies, “Non nisi te, Domine” or “Nothing but you, Lord.”
Saint Augustine explains that “True happiness is to rejoice in the truth, for to rejoice in the truth is to rejoice in You, O God, who are the truth.” He continues: “Those who think that there is another kind of happiness look for joy elsewhere, but theirs is not true joy.” Once we understand and accept that our entire being–mind, body, and soul–is designed with an interminable yearning for happiness that can only be satiated divinely, we can begin to prioritize how we live our lives and dedicate our resources. Jesus advises us to seek first the Kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33, Luke 12:31), knowing that when we do so, all other things fall into place.
Servant of God Hans Urs von Balthasar refers to living a life properly ordered toward God as living the Theo-Drama. Playing our God-given role in His perpetual story of the universe is the greatest and most exciting thing we can do on this earth. God is exciting, and we are made to participate in that excitement. Unfortunately, so many of us become distracted by lesser things or caught up in our own personal drama where everything revolves around ourselves. Anything we dream up through our limited human imagination is simply a boring Ego-Drama compared with the infinite perfection of the Theo-Drama that God offers us. The happiness that God promises always surpasses any happiness that the world promises.
Ask yourself again to state your deepest desire. If it is not communion with God, upon what other good do you place higher value? The Venerable Fulton Sheen observes that “If you do not worship God, you worship something, and nine times out of ten it will be yourself.” Self-worship is a form of pride, which distances us from God. Without God, you will always feel like something is missing in your life, like there is something better out there. God creates us out of love with that pining in our hearts meant only to be filled with His love. When we try to fill that void with other things, we still feel empty. Only our Creator can make us whole. When you open your heart to God, He completes you with the love that you are made to encounter.
Follow in the footsteps of the great Saint Thomas Aquinas. Reward yourself with something that will bring you closer to God when you are feeling down or when you crave a treat. Pray, go to adoration, attend daily Mass, make a heartfelt confession, meditate on the Rosary, read scripture, do something charitable for someone else, express gratitude, forgive someone, appreciate the wonder of Creation, or do anything good with the intention of growing in friendship with the Lord. Make this a regular habit, and see what happens.
Challenge: Seek Rewards That Bring You Closer to God
