The prophet Habakkuk, the poet Asaph, and the theologian Augustine all have something in common: they believe that God alone can satisfy our deepest desires and, conversely, that by seeking satisfaction in anything else, we become restless and wound our own hearts. The rest of this article seeks to explain this common perspective in order to help readers find rest for their restless souls.
Habakkuk on the Heart’s Deadly Appetite (Hab. 2:4–5)
The proud are never at rest. So wrote the biblical prophet Habakkuk. He maintained that the proud can never find a place to relax, rest, and be at peace (Hab. 2:5).
The reason why, Habakkuk explains, is that the proud always want more and are never satisfied. Hence, Habakkuk claims that pride is like Death: it comes for everyone and everything. It never stops (Hab. 2:5).
But even if the proud gain everything in the universe, they stay hungry and become sick. Habakkuk says of the proud in verse 4 that their soul is shrivelled, sickly, weak. Their diet has no nutrition. It is all junk food. Their hunger never ceases. And what they devour does not give them life; it sickens them one bite at a time.
Imagine someone eating food they are deathly allergic to. Each time they eat, they become worse. That is the kind of thing Habakkuk has in mind. It is self-harm, a desire for more that wounds as it wants.
Habakkuk does not leave us in shock. He also prescribes a remedy for this sickness. An appetite that never finds satisfaction makes the soul sick; slowly it dies. By contrast, the righteous person will have life by faith in God (Hab. 2:4).
We know what Habakkuk is talking about. We tend to think that the more stuff we have, the more experiences we get, or the more success we have, the happier we will become. But happiness doesn’t work linearly. We often get to one milestone only to have despair crash down upon us again. We worry about everything and nothing; we envy the success and perceived happiness of others.
We can order anything in the world by a few taps on our phones, but DoorDash and Amazon leave us hungry for more.
We are always in motion and never at rest.
Asaph on Hearts Wounded Through Desire (Ps. 73)
Another Israelite, named Asaph, learned this lesson the hard way. Asaph was a singer of poetry and seer of God (1 Chr. 6:39, 15:17, 19; 16:4-7; 2 Chr. 29:30). He writes a poem about a time in his life when he envied the wealth, success, and perceived happiness of proud people and how that turned him into an animal of labour, living by instinct for more but never able to find peace for his soul.
Asaph remembers: “I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind” (Ps. 73:3–5).
Due to his longing to be as rich and healthy and carefree as “the arrogant,” he ends up attacking himself. He explains, “All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning” (Ps. 73:13–14).
First, he feels ripped off. He lived a good life but feels miserable; meanwhile, everyone around him seems to be having so much. So what if they are arrogant and do evil? They are at least happy!
So, second, he turns against his own soul. His own unmet desire, envy, and greed mean that he attacks his soul: “I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.” By whom? By his own wounded desires that are like fiery darts hitting his heart daily.
He describes himself as a beast of burden, living by instinct, always wanting more, but never at rest. “When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you” (Ps. 73:21–22).
Wounded in desire, bestial in life, Asaph’s own appetite made him miserable. His desires wounded him, and so he became less than human, animal-like in soul.
Why does the proud (or envious) person never find rest? Answer: because their appetites always want more and can never find satisfaction in anything this life has to offer.
Asaph finally figures it out when he experienced a vision of God: “when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end” (Ps. 73:16–17).
When he met God, two things crystallized for him. First, that the end of the wicked is not eternal joy. Their days of excess are numbered. As the great theologian Johnny Cash sang, “You can run on for a long time, but sooner or later, God’ll cut you down” because “what’s done in the darkness will come to the light” (see Ps. 73:18–20).
Second, he realized that his desires for things of this world made him suffer. It was his own desire that wounded him. And not only did it harm him psychologically, it also made him less than human: he was like a beast before God. Always at work because always desiring more. Never satisfied, because his desire was like death; it swallows everything but never finds rest.
But when he saw God, he realized that God alone could satisfy his desires, for God alone is the desire of the nations. As the king-poet David wrote, “you [God] satisfy the desire of every living thing” (Ps. 145:16).
And Asaph thus concluded: “I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Ps 73.:23–26).
Augustine: How We Heal Our Wounded Hearts
Habakkuk tells us our desire is like death and ends in a kind of death; Asaph narrates poetically how our own desires wound our hearts because we want what could never satisfy. Both tell us the remedy is God.
But how does that look in our lives? How do we move from wounded desire which always seeks but never rests to a satisfaction for our souls that enters into the rest of God?
We need a guide, someone to apprentice under. Because it is not just that we need information. If that were all it took, then we’d all be happy, satisfied, and at rest now. But most of us are not. So we need someone to guide us.
And the person who I think is the best guide for our soul’s journey to God is Augustine of Hippo, a Christian theologian, who wrote a spiritual autobiography called The Confessions around AD 397. It is the first of its kind and has become a classic, for good reason. It may be my favourite book—one I have read many times.
Who is Augustine and why might he be worth our time?
Well, he probably lived a life similar to many of us. He was born into a middle-class household, was estranged from his father, and had a difficult relationship with his overbearing mother, Monica. He was brilliant but troubled. Early in life, he ran with gangs and speaks of how he simply enjoyed doing what was evil.
Eventually, he leaves home to study rhetoric in Carthage and later to teach it. He gets a girlfriend, and they have a baby together, named Adeodatus. At this point, Augustine seems to be ascendant. He is young, brilliant, and curious. So he becomes something of a hippy, joining a cult called Manichaeism that was popular among highbrow thinkers in Augustine’s day. It supposedly solves the problem of evil and makes sense of the world.
But a number of things begin to hit Augustine. First, one of his best friends died, and it broke him. He couldn’t figure it out. Second, he became disenchanted with Manichaeism after hearing one of its great leaders speak. Augustine thought he was stupid. And so he had a crisis of belief. Third, he continued to remember his mother and her teaching about Christ.
So he sets out on a quest to find out what most satisfies in life. He tricks his mother and sails away to Rome and then on to Milan. He explores philosophy, pleasure, and success. At one time, he finds himself addicted to sex. At another, he becomes the official rhetor for the imperial household in Milan, making him one of the most successful men in the empire.
And yet, he tells us, none of this satisfies. The more he gets, the worse he feels. He is restless, never at ease. “Our hearts are restless,” explains Augustine, “until they find rest in God.”
While in Milan, he finds himself so wounded in heart, so restless, that he does not know what to do. And he sees a drunk and homeless man. And as he looks at him, he notices how this man seems happy, yes, not truly and fully; but happy nonetheless. And he realizes that he has everything: wealth, prestige, sex, family, respect, honours, and more. Yet he is miserable. Not satisfied.
So Augustine tells us how his heart journeyed to God, where he finally found rest.
He explains:
And remembering God’s grace to him, much like Asaph, who realized that God was always holding his right hand, even when his feet almost stumbled, Augustine likewise came to the realization that while he pursued temporary pleasure, God was always drawing him to eternal bliss:
My commendation to anyone reading this is to take up and read Augustine. He is a guide for the restless who re-points us back to God, who alone can bring us rest, heal our wounded hearts, and give us life by faith.
