You know, I was just reflecting yesterday on fundamental human desires/motivations – to not just survive, but to thrive. It was partly because I read your essay, but it was also tied to other reading I’ve been doing on original sin, desire and temptation.
As you mentioned above, true human flourishing can only happen in a loving relationship with True Life itself, which results in fear losing much of its driving power. It’s not that we don’t feel fear or threat ever again, but it’s that we don’t have to be controlled by it.
When I saw my friends thriving in the love of God, I knew I was missing out. So that desire to not miss out drove me to enter into it for myself. In doing so, I realized there was a fear that had kept me away from that space – fear of unworthiness or, more potently, fear that God would call me into a life of misery.
I wonder how may Christians go through life resigned to misery in God’s service. I’m not talking difficulty or pain or suffering – those things are definitely a part of life and, therefore, the Christian life. But misery is a different story. It is a non-flourishing of the older brother variety. His misery is betrayed by his statement, “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends.” (Lk 15:29) The NIV translates it as “slaving for you”. No wonder there’s a drive to find thriving elsewhere…when all the while, it’s there in front of them. The relationship is simultaneously accessible and inaccessible.