Our longings are made for beauty.
For twelve healing ways to put desire to action, you can download my guide below. I'll explore these ideas more each month.
The heart’s ability to stretch across the widest chasms can feel conflicting—though it’s also connecting. A heart can care deeply for two very different people, can be attached to two places so very far apart, and can find ways to extend itself beyond what it ever thought it could. In one sense this can seem contradictory, but this is what we’re made for. Love doesn't go in one single direction, but forms a connection of paths and bridges that reach far and wide. A couple weeks ago, I stopped by the dollar store after church. However, I didn’t realize until I got back to my car that I had locked my keys inside. After confirming Nano wasn’t too far away with the extra key, I set my groceries on the hood of the car, and found a seat in the lawn chair beside the store's front entrance. Customers passed in and out. Flower pots, garden flags and bags of charcoal surrounded me. Then I noticed a grey scooter near my chair that seemed a little worn, not for sale. After a few minutes, a lady stepped out of the building and began the task of securing her cartful of groceries to the scooter. She was quite friendly. I explained my situation to her, and she shared with me that she lived close to the store and enjoyed the scooter rides and the fresh air. I noticed her accent and learned she was from South Africa. “That’s where my heart is,” she said. South Africa is where she wanted to be. She’d been in Texas for three years. “I met my husband online. He was from here, but agreed to come live with me in South Africa. It worked out for ten years,” she said, “but the whole time he really missed his home.” She spoke of the strain of living a joint life with hearts in two different places. Yet, she spoke of it with a tender sense of joy—an openness to see what lay ahead, and hopeful that one day she would be home again. The conversation stuck in my mind. Her heart is in South Africa. Her heart is with her husband. His heart is in Texas. The math of how a heart works doesn’t add up. I think of the tensions my own heart carries, the quiet ways to be “with” someone when my feet can’t find the way across the same bridge. Does it ever add up? I don’t think so. Somehow though, the unsolved equations in my heart are the places God speaks to me most—when I give up trying to solve them. Some mysteries aren’t meant to be solved. Some mysteries come into our lives to tug on our hearts—maybe even to tear us, and somehow…to heal us. To the mysteries we can’t make sense of, to the math that never works, to the unsolved puzzles in an unfinished life, we welcome you. We’ll let you be. This past weekend, I stretched out on the living room floor, chin in my hands, dice rolling, my children cheering. The puzzle in my heart can stay unfinished for now, if it means I can embrace the wonder of the gifts right here before me.
Sometimes when we come to connect with God in prayer, questions are the only words we can find. The Bible is full of heavy questions God’s children have asked Him in prayer. We may feel shame rise over the queries we have for God. Sometimes I’ve wondered if God is disappointed in me for wondering where He is. At times, I am tempted to pull away from God when I think of my doubts and fears. However, God’s Word encourages His people to do something astounding—and beautiful. “Trust in [God] at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” Psalm 62:8. When I read this verse, I notice something that makes me feel so light and free. Psalm 62 does not say: Trust in God at all times, O people; quit asking Him questions! Rather than shutting down our inquiries, God encourages His children to pour out our hearts. Scripture takes this act of sharing our raw selves in prayer, and actually connects it with living out our trust in God. It refreshes me to see this in my Bible. Psalm 13 is one prayer that begins with raw questions. “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” Psalm 13:1-2 God never desires that we would withdraw from him because of the mess we feel inside. If distressing questions are the first words to come when we seek God’s presence, we are still loved by a God who longs to hear our hearts. There are times when trusting God with our messy uncertainties is the best way we can move toward Him. Psalm 13 begins with questions and carries forward still. For two more verses the psalmist petitions God to look upon his troubles, to consider his situation and respond. Then the psalmist remembers the guiding arrow of his internal faith compass that has served him well before—an arrow he knows can be trusted. “But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.” Psalm 13:5-6 A heart that pours itself out to God is not despised by Him. To come to God with our questions is often an act of trust. Our doubts are messy, but they are a doorway—and curiously, the doorway can lead toward God. Although, doubt can also lead away from Him. Some time after God split the Red Sea and delivered the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt, they grumbled about God. Their questions sounded like this: “Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” Numbers 14:3 Moses, Aaron, Joshua and Caleb immediately reminded the people of God’s goodness. The people responded by picking up stones to kill them. God felt their actions deeply, asking, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?” Numbers 14:11 God asks questions too. When doubt rises, He longs for us to run toward Him. He waits for us to remember who He is and who He always has been. Mystery sometimes surrounds heavy questions in the Bible. I just know that if our queries can serve as a doorway to move us toward God and His faithfulness, it is good to ask God our questions. Here are a few more questions the psalmists ask of God in prayer: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?” Psalm 22:1 “God why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?” Psalm 74:1 “How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever? Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?” Psalm 74:10-11 “Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” Psalm 77:7-9 “How long O Lord? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire?” Psalm 79:5 “How long O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire?” Psalm 89:46 “Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?” Psalm 89:49 There is one question in the New Testament that, to me, companions all of our human questions with the greatest love. It’s the question asked by Jesus from the cross. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46 Jesus intimately knows about our questions. He knows, too, about all of our pain and our trials. “For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” Hebrews 2:18 In light of the cross, the questions and doubts we experience along the journey of faith are among the deepest of gifts we can know. Who knows what good gifts these uncertainties may invite us too? It’s quite possible that our soul-deep questions seek to point us toward the faithfulness of God’s guiding hand like nothing else can.
What we do with longing will shape the course of our lives. It’s essential to consider what we long for—to dig beneath the surface of a wish, and seek to uncover what we truly want. In the words of C.S. Lewis… “We remain conscious of a desire which no natural happiness will satisfy. But is there any reason to suppose that reality offers any satisfaction to it? ‘Nor does the being hungry prove that we have bread.’ But I think it may be urged that this misses the point. A man’s physical hunger does not prove that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man’s hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will. A man may love a woman and not win her; but it would be very odd if the phenomenon called “falling in love” occurred in a sexless world. Here, then, is the desire, still wandering and uncertain of its object and still largely unable to see that object in the direction where it really lies.” -C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses , 33. I long for a world where misunderstandings don’t fog our vision. Or, at least a world where that confusion can be cleared up quickly. Yet, life reminds me of a different reality. Bad memories rise. We ponder pain. We worry. Worry stirs fear. Fear clouds judgment. John’s need for quiet is seen as a threat to Jane. Jane’s need for comfort is seen as a threat to John. All the while, they want whatever lies beyond the disconnect. But what does one do with the “want” in the meantime? What do you do with longing in a life where mistaken meanings can carry on for weeks, or a lifetime? Desire is a fire in the dead of a freezing storm. Without it, the cold will thicken your blood and work to stifle the beat of your heart. But, tend to desire with care, or the fire itself may sweep over you with its flames. To tend to desire is the summons of life, and it is a solemn and glorious call. There is longing which keeps the heart beating, keeps a life warm—and helps to warm the lives of others. We keep a fire going, knowing that what we do with longing becomes the kindling of hope. When we remember what we wait for, the slow, steady tending is worth every weary moment. We hope for the day when the cold will be gone, and fires will never consume what is good. “The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18). We live for the hope of redemption to come. Bad memories rise. But fear cannot defeat Love, and Love is here to hold and share. Jesus draws close to touch the leper. Love leans close to touch the scars. Pain can turn to imagine a future where each wounded place we meet is an opportunity to Love. More than all we can imagine, our good God can move us with hope. With an eternal dream before us, we can learn a long patience. We savor the moments when warmth is shared. We make beauty with our hands while the fire burns on. We’ll consider what we long for. For goodness is in reach.