The Cosmic Disillusionment

Lately, I've been personally working through the issue of money, wealth, and possessions in my own spiritual journey. The Spirit has used numerous circumstances and events in recent days to help reveal subtle, yet stubborn idols hoarded within my heart. So in keeping in step with the recent revelations I picked up Tim Keller's "Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, Power, and the Only Hope that Matters."

In his second chapter, Keller focuses on the gaping emptiness contained in the world's definition of love. His chapter title, "Love is not all you need" is most revealing. In this chapter he talks about the "cosmic disillusionment" which captivates mankind's environment since the Fall. In all of human life there belies a "cosmic disappointment" which acts as a common denominator.

Let me expound. God in His creative genius placed within man an innate desire. This desire transcends love, passions, & even death. God has given each of us a desire for worship - a longing outside of ourselves. So men & women either choose to be satisfied from the Satisfier - the One who gave them the desire in the first place or a substitute of the Real satisfaction - a substitute that later is revealed as cheap, devastating, and even damning. So Keller tells of examples after examples of people (biblical & contemporary) who have sought after various counterfeit satisfiers.

Often, people don't even realize this underlying cosmic disillusionment exists. Yet Keller argues the sooner they understand it the wiser they will be in life. He states that every person in some way or another experiences this comic disillusionment and disappointment, "but we especially feel it in the things upon which we most set our hopes" (Keller, Counterfeit Gods, 39). He gives four possible responses to this issue:

1. You can blame the things that are disappointing you and move on to try better ones.

2. You can blame yourself and beat upon yourself (i.e. bouts of depression, self-pity, self-loathing).

3. You can blame the world and become hard, cynical, and empty.

4. OR you can reorient the entire focus of your life toward God as C.S. Lewis mused, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probably explanation is that I was made for another world [something supernatural and eternal]" (Keller, 39).

All of this leads me back to my own issues on my view of money, wealth, & possessions. The power of the Gospel has freed me from the constricting powers of this cosmic disillusionment and has given me hope & purpose from its devastating disappointments. Jesus, my Savior has given me a grace I didn't deserve, a grace I didn't seek, and a grace that I didn't appreciate! But that simply demonstrates how the Gospel affects every facet in life. The Gospel is not simply a story, a time I said a prayer, the Romans road, etc. The Gospel is totality of Jesus & His abiding Spirit in the world today!

In summary, we must stop trying to make everything our everlasting satisfier - a savior in a sense. Rather we must acknowledge & understand that we already have the ultimate Satiator - a Savior who is Christ the Lord.