As someone who was brought up in a Christian home, I often heard the phrase, “Jesus is the answer”. The idea was that Jesus is the answer to the world’s problems. I believed it. I was young and immersed in Christian culture so of course, that was the line I was fed and it was the line I towed. But, to be honest, as I matured, this line didn’t appear to fit too well with what I saw around me. The culture outside my home and church was very secular and increasingly hostile to this Christian worldview. The culture didn’t understand Jesus as the answer or even an answer or possible answer. In fact, I believe the world around me saw and still very often sees the Christian religion, with Jesus supposedly at it’s center, as a source of some of the problems in the world.
As I made my way through school I was drawn to the sciences, especially the earth sciences. I even received a PhD in mathematical applications in the Earth Sciences! Because of the nature of earth sciences I was faced with a conundrum: I had to reconcile the Christian faith with both the science I studied and respected, as well as the reality of the culture I found myself in. This tension led to a struggle. This struggle was mental, emotional and spiritual. Doubts about the truth of Christianity surfaced in my mind. I don’t think I was aware of it at the time, but I began a journey, investigating the truth claims of Christianity, of other religions, of the role of faith, and how this all sat with the evidence, science, and my experiences of life.
I increasingly felt that I wasn’t alone. The people around me, no matter their background, whether they knew it consciously or not, were all seeking something. What were they seeking? Truth perhaps. Identity maybe. For many it was belonging and companionship. Often it was a search for purpose and position in life. Ultimately, I think it could be described as the desire for thriving and flourishing, just as both the ancient minds and modern social and behavioural sciences have exposed and which I outlined here. It appeared to me that everyone had this sense that the world isn’t as it should be; that there is more to be discovered, experienced and enjoyed; that instead of languishing in life, we should be flourishing and these same longings and desires still persist. A flourishing life is still what we all desire. But why? Where do these deep longings, these desires and dissatisfaction come from?
In recent years I have come to the realization that there is an answer and that “I Am” is the answer. I don’t mean that it is me that is the answer. No, definitely not! In the Christian Bible, Jesus Christ, who is central to the Christian faith and the reason his followers are called Christians, used the phrase “I Am” to describe himself. Even though I went on a journey of discovery, studying, and investigating the truth claims of religions, science and culture, I always had this feeling that the true Christian worldview – in it’s purest form, as imparted to us by Jesus – provided the best answer to the longings and desires and dissatisfaction that we as humans feel. Jesus is in fact, the answer. Yes, it could be a bumper sticker found on a SUV driving through the US Bible belt. Maybe it sounds too simple to you. Or maybe ridiculous or perhaps offensive. But my experience has been that Jesus is the answer. He always was and still is.
The academic, philosopher and celebrated author of the Narnia books, C.S. Lewis, came to this same conclusion after wrestling with faith and the reality of the human condition:
Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.”
C.S. Lewis
In other words, we have desires and longings, cravings and dissatisfaction because there are real things that satisfy them. But when the answers we find around us fail to meet those longings, desires and fulfillment, it points to an answer outside of our natural world. I have come to the conclusion that it is Jesus, the “I Am”, that provides the answer to those desperate longings and desires that we experience.
This site and the ideas it contains are based not only on my studies but on my own personal experience. I am sure many will disagree, some strongly, but the idea that Jesus is the answer to our deepest longings has become increasingly evident to me as it makes the most sense of the world around me. Maybe some of the thoughts I share here will cause you to consider what pieces in your life are missing, and what perspective makes the most sense of the world around you that can best answer and colour in those empty spaces of your life.