When Longing for More is Enough

ONE OF the most difficult things in life is living with unfulfilled longings. To be hungry but there is no food, or thirsty and there is no water, or in love and there is no reciprocation, or holding hopes and dreams in our hearts that are constantly denied, is simply a horrid feeling of dissatisfaction. 

THE REASON for the God-centered hope we have in Christ is twofold. Part of it is that what is promised to anyone who trusts in Jesus is secure in God and his kingdom and will not fail to be fulfilled. But the other part of it is that we are living as strangers in a foreign land that can never satisfy us in the present the way our Forever Home will satisfy us in the future. 

WHICH MEANS that we must become okay with longings. We must be okay with having longings that are not immediately met, and we must be okay with God changing our hearts so that we know which longings to live with and which to discard. 

WHY IS this front and center for me this morning? Because when I consider what it would have been like for the prophet Jeremiah to hear God speaking to him with such precision that Jeremiah would know how to experience, “for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak,” is simply awesome, and amazing, and… well… IT FILLS ME WITH LONGING!!! 

THERE IS something I’ve learned about since doing daycare that is called referencing. It is when a child will look up from their play to see if their big people are noticing them. And when we do, when us big people acknowledge their referencing, even just the simple fact that we noticed them communicates volumes to those little hearts, but when we respond with a smile you can almost see the peace settle upon them that all is well with their little world. 

SO WHEN I hear that God appeared to someone, and that person got to experience actual referencing with him where all their senses were involved in feeling what God was doing, and their whole body, soul, and spirit was engaged with God so that the person’s heart, mind, and brain were overwhelmed by the realness of an encounter with God… well… IT FILLS ME WITH LONGING!!! 

I KNOW I’m setting myself up for that who-knows-what criticism of something here. But I can genuinely say that I cannot help having this longing to experience the same referencing with my soul/spirit as if my soul/body experienced God showing up right now so my eyes could see his countenance, and my ears could hear the sound of his voice singing over me, and my nose could breathe in the fragrance of life that is all about him, and my mouth could taste the freshness of the living water and the texture of the bread of life, and my whole body could feel the touch of God healing the wounds of my soul, filling my being with the comfort and satisfaction of a hug from heaven, and leaving me resting in the peacefulness of complete attachment to the Almighty. 

AND NO MATTER how much God may gift a person with moments of satisfaction in this lifetime, it is like a video chat with a loved one who is too far away to visit in person and, although we are ever so thankful for the technology that gives us such interaction, IT ISN’T LIKE THEM BEING HERE!!! 

MEDITATING on God’s word is delightful, but it leaves me with the longing of what it will sound like in paradise with God when the Word speaks to me in the glorification that unites every body-soul-spirit sense to feel full and complete attachment to the Triune God that satisfies longings to the fullness of God’s joy. 

AND PRAYER is a wonderful gift, but it leaves me with the longing of what it will be like in the new heavens and the new earth to speak to Jesus… (I tremble with the wonder of such a thought!) and… actually… feel the exhilaration of seeing what it looks like for him to see me in person, and hearing what it sounds like for him to reply to me in my wondering, and smelling the fragrances and aromas of my Forever Home, not only in the newness of its creation, but in the substance of every aspect of eternity that can only now be imagined, and tasting the fruit of the Tree of Life and the waters of the River of Life. 

I MUST LIVE with the longing of what it will one day feel like for Jesus to touch me in person as he wipes away every tear from my eyes when my experience of this earthly life has brought me to know Jesus so well as the “man of sorrows” who is “acquainted with grief”. I must live with the longing to be free of heartache, and sorrow, and death, and… ATTACHMENT-PAIN(!!!) as an inescapable reality in the here-and-now. 

AND SO it is that we live in HOPE. Hope means we live with unfulfilled longings now, but in the comfort of the certainty that they WILL be fulfilled in due time. We not only wait in expectation, and we not only let ourselves imagine the realities to come, but we feel a certain restfulness and peace that what is promised is as certain as if it was already ours right now. 

AND THEN we dress for the day in our Ambassador-for-Christ suit and continue living for his glory as strangers to this foreign land of the world. After all, there are still lost souls to save, and there are still outcasts to invite into the citizenship of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and there are still the wounded who need their hearts bound up in the comforts of God’s love, and… well… there’s just so many people who don’t even know the satisfaction of hungering and thirsting for righteousness because Jesus has died to set us free! 

I WOULD RATHER be the child of God traveling the narrow road with all its longings for my heavenly home, and longings for the realities of full and unrestricted attachment to God in the completeness of my whole being, than to be the worldling that feels satisfied by the lies, deceptions, mirages, fairy tales, and fabrications of a world that does not even know it is on the wide road to destruction. 

SO, we go into this day willing to feel the longing for others to be saved out of their sin and condemnation while they do not care one little bit that they are lost from our Savior. We go willing to feel these longings for people to be saved today from the hopelessness of this “present darkness” because we want them to be so satisfied with new life in Jesus Christ that they will join us in rejoicing in our Lord and Savior every day of our lives, while smiling in hope as we help and encourage one another that Jesus will soon return. 

AND, as Paul said, we admit that “now we see in a mirror dimly,” but we long with certainty for when we will see “face to face.” We acknowledge that “now I know in part” but with the confident hope that “then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” 

SO WE CONCLUDE with Paul that our focus is on abiding in “faith, hope, and love” because in this present world “the righteous shall live by faith”, we “set our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ”, and we “walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” 

I WILL LET the apostle Paul have the last word on living with unfulfilled longings. He certainly let himself feel such things beyond the norm. So let us heed his example as we shine our light into this dark world today: “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)