It’s 3am and you can’t sleep. The question has been creeping up on you for the last few weeks…you can’t seem to shake it. “Is this all there is?” Afterall, you have worked hard and have been very successful. You are respected by your peers. You have achieved financial success and want nothing. People seek your advice and yet, “Why do I feel so empty?”

“C.S. Lewis’s “Argument from Desire” in Mere Christianity posts that human, innate longings for transcendent joy, beauty, or meaning that cannot be satisfied by any earthly experience suggest we were designed for another world—specifically, for God. Lewis argued that just as natural appetites like hunger correspond to real food, this universal, insatiable desire for “something more” points to a real, heavenly object.” Google

I believe the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:16-22 had a sleepless night when he came to Jesus. ““Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?” “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” “Which ones?” he inquired. Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’” “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?” Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.””

The cost was too high for the young man. “When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.” He didn’t think Jesus was enough. Yet Paul, who was very successful, chose differently.

In Philippians 3:7-11, Paul clearly tells us after his encounter with Jesus, everything changed. He found what his heart desired. “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.”

Then Paul clearly tells us his purpose in verse 12-14, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

The choice is clear. Which do you emulate, the rich young ruler or Paul?