I considered adding a paragraph to my previous post about the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and how it drives us to snatch up the crumbs of joyful earthly experiences. All those experiences, I concluded, are things we pursue because they give us a sense of the greater joy for which we are destined - the perfect joy of union with God in our eternal home. We need not fear running out of time and "missing out" on the good things of earth, because they will all be surpassed by the greater, truer joy of heaven. In death, we who are in Christ will feel no regret over missed joys from earth.
     Minutes after I posted that entry, I heard a song playing in a restaurant and realized it was speaking of that exact topic. Rather than add a paragraph to an already completed post, I've decided to explore that song in a post of its own.
     In U2's award winning song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," Bono sings of the things he has experienced - climbing mountains, running through fields, physical intimacy, etc - and all these experiences have one goal: "Only to be with you." Since this is a pop song, we might naturally expect that the "you" that Bono wants to be with is a romantic interest. But as the song plays out, we see that Bono has a different "you" in mind. "You broke the bonds and you loosed the chains. Carried the cross of my shame." From these words we see that when Bono says he does all this "only to be with you," he is desiring to experience and draw close to Jesus.
     What the song so beautifully describes is the same thing Scripture teaches us in Ecclesiastes 3:10-11, "I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." The world is beautiful, and the world is made to be enjoyed, but the world is not made to give us our highest joy.  The joy we find here awakens in our hearts an eternal, unquenchable desire for the one who created that joy. But, as we all come to realize, nothing on earth can satisfy the heart's desire for God, and so the refrain of the song reminds us that no matter what we experience, "I still haven't found what I'm looking for."
     When we mistake the created pleasures and joys of earth for the true and lasting joy, we are like travelers heading for some great destination (let's say the Grand Canyon, in keeping with the theme from my previous post) who stop at the first billboard they see and gaze upon the words, "Grand Canyon, 100 miles ahead." Seeing the sign, they think they've reached their goal. Such foolish travelers will find it exciting at first, but then unsatisfying.   Our desire is for something much better, much more amazing than what we get.  This is the experience of all who gather crumbs outside the lobby of the feast. Without the hope or expectation of the greater joy, we might find ourselves singing a different song than Bono sings, a song more like one from the movie musical "The Greatest Showman."
"All the shine of a thousand spotlights.
All the stars we steal from the night sky
Will never be enough, Never be enough.
Towers of gold are still too little,
These hands could hold the world but it'll
Never be enough, Never be enough for me."

     And so, despite the fear of missing out, there is a greater disappointment we can experience: getting what we want. We can experience all the good on earth, have everything we want to have. And it will not satisfy. This also is taught to us in Ecclesiastes: "Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun" Ecclesiastes 2:10–11.
     In all my decades of studying, writing, listening to, and enjoying music, I've come to see that most of our songs speak either of our hearts desire for satisfaction or of the pain of being unsatisfied (the Rolling Stones have two hits overtly about being dissatisfied and not getting what you want).  Music speaks this way because it is the universal experience of humanity to be discontent and unfulfilled.  But for the one who trusts Christ, that frustration isn't the end of the story.  Bono writes from a perspective of Christian faith, and so his unfinished pursuit is carried out in hope: "I believe in the Kingdom Come, Then all the colors will bleed into one... But yes, I'm still running."
     Where does that leave me, then? Still running. Still living. But living with the assurance of satisfaction instead of the fear of missing out. Not because I know I will get to see and do and be all the things I want to in this life, but because I know that none of those things were ever really "what I'm looking for."  And what I'm looking for - and unimaginably more - is surely mine in Christ.

     I've taken us through a lot of songs in this little addendum. Allow me to wrap it up with one more set of lyrics:
"Fading is the worldling's pleasure,
All his boasted pomp and show;
Solid joys and lasting treasure
None but Zion's children know."

Solid joys.  Lasting treasure.  That is what we don't want to miss out on.  And that is what awaits us when the doors to the banquet hall open to all the hungry guests.