For so long as I can bear in mind, I’ve been drawn to tales, music, and artwork that evoke longing. Once I was a younger lady, my father learn to me C.S. Lewis’ ebook “Until We Have Faces.” Although I used to be too younger on the time to completely respect the story, the phrases of Lewis’ character Psyche deeply resonated with me. “The sweetest factor in all my life has been the longing—to achieve the Mountain, to search out the place the place all the sweetness got here from— … .”
I couldn’t have articulated it then, however part of me understood the reality tucked inside these phrases: magnificence and goodness are to attract us to their supply.
We go to nice lengths to keep away from longing, and there are many glittering photos to assist us keep away from it. We lengthy for consolation and ease, for belonging, for therapeutic, or to be understood.
I’ve spent a decade ready for kids which have by no means come. By limitless bloodwork, exams, and procedures, we had been identified with unexplained infertility. No phrases can absolutely seize the expertise of repeatedly biking via seasons of hope and grief.
All of us carry longings. I do know individuals who lengthy for aid from relentless nervousness, the restoration of damaged relationships, the return of wayward youngsters to the Lord, and therapeutic from debilitating ache. These are all good issues to lengthy for, and it’s proper to lament the methods sin ravages our world, relationships, and our bodies.
We’d do effectively as God’s individuals to turn out to be extra fluent within the language of lament. But in the case of hope, Christians have a tendency to think about hope by way of our longings being realized. This mind-set might even prolong into how we view the promise of restoration that the Bible holds out to us.
I grew to become conscious of this in my very own life after a night spent with others who had been strolling via infertility, most of whom had misplaced youngsters alongside the best way. My husband and I’ve been spared this explicit sorrow. As we ended our time collectively in prayer, there was a typical theme of hope spoken aloud by every individual: the data that sooner or later they might see their youngsters once more. It’s the identical consolation I’ve usually spoken to others amidst their loss, as a result of it’s a marvelous, wonderous promise made true in Christ. Wonderful reunions do await these believers.
However I wept as I drove dwelling as a result of to this point the longer term glory and restoration that await me is not going to embrace embracing youngsters of my very own. What I so deeply lengthy for, I’ll by no means have. For the primary time, the total weight of this washed over me.
In that grief, the phrases of Jesus in John 8 got here to thoughts: “I’m.” These are the phrases spoken by the Lord in Exodus 3 as he tells Moses, “I Am Who I Am.” My restricted concepts of hope and restoration had been upended amidst the notice of the far larger factor that awaits us: Christ himself as our comfort. He’s the one for whom our souls most deeply lengthy, and he’s the very promise held out to us within the new heavens and new earth. “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He’ll dwell with them, and they are going to be his individuals, and God himself can be with them as their God” (Revelation 21:3).
We chase after issues we predict will fulfill our longings: relationships, significant work, consolation, and safety. Or we pursue issues that may boring our senses to them: busyness, alcohol, management, intercourse. However what if our longings had been by no means supposed to be glad by something right here on earth, however as an alternative to level us to one thing, Somebody, far larger—to Christ? He’s the success of each longing.
There’s an account in Luke’s gospel of two individuals who understood this effectively: Simeon and Anna. Luke tells us that Simeon, possible superior in years and a part of the devoted remnant of God’s individuals, was ready for the comfort of Israel. We’re not advised how lengthy he had been ready. It might have been a lifetime. Anna, a devoted worshiper and widow who seems to have been left with no household, has spent nearly a lifetime alone in a time when being a widow was exceedingly tough. Simeon and Anna are two individuals effectively acquainted with longing, and sure with struggling.
As Jesus is dropped at the temple to be offered to the Lord, Simeon and Anna expertise longing fulfilled in his presence. As Simeon takes the kid Christ in his arms, his marvel overflows into worship. He’s so overcome by his encounter with Christ that he says that he can now die in peace. He doesn’t even want to remain round to see all of the Messiah would do. His promised presence is sufficient.
Equally, Anna’s encounter with Christ turns her prayer and fasting into joyful thanksgiving. Two lives upended and endlessly modified just by encountering the One for whom they longed.
The comfort to return is on the market to us now by Christ and his work on our behalf. He’s with us in our longings and he’s certainly making all issues new. We anticipate longing that can be met in eternity: reunions with youngsters, freedom from nervousness, therapeutic of our bodies, and the restoration of relationships. They may pale compared to the glory of dwelling with the One who’s the supply of these issues.
Could we be a covenant neighborhood of people that cling to this fact and stay in keen anticipation of the return of Christ who fulfills all longings.
Catherine Duffin is director of religious care at Christ the King Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas.
