Yearning……….an expectant looking for, longing……I guess we’re
all familiar with that. Oftentimes, I
find myself yearning for different things.
I long to see family members than I haven’t seen for a while, either
because they’ve gone home to be with the Lord or because they live far away.
I am pretty much a content person when it comes to ‘things’. I’m not the type to want things, never have
been. It has always been more about
people I love that I can’t see often enough.
Lately I have had this deep yearning within. Yearning for a place I have not seen before,
for a home I know little about, for a land not yet clear in my mind. I haven’t yearned in this way for this place. Yearning for this home has always come when
things were so very bad.
Now, I yearn for that home and I’m so very content to be
just where I am. Yet, this unsettled
yearning lurks within me. Loneliness for
that home, that land that my mind cannot imagine. I am happy with my life. I love this man God has given me with my
whole heart. He is a gift at a time in
life that I certainly did not expect. How
I could want or need anything else is a mystery to me!
Yet, this longing in my soul remains constant; perhaps even
growing at times. “You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry
and parched land where there is no water.
I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my
lips will glorify you. I will praise you
as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.” Psalms 63: 1-4 (NIV)
I grope as in the darkness for something I can’t quite hold
on to. I stumble through the days
feeling empty yet so full of praise my lips cannot contain it. How does this happen? I have felt the longings for heaven many
times in the past….times when my heart was broken or my life seemed to be
spinning out of control. Yet, here I am with the deep and hungry yearning for
heaven when everything in my life is so good and so full.
“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would
later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know
where he was going. By faith he made his
home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in
tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with
foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” Hebrews 11: 8-10 (NIV)
So Abraham understood what I feel right now. He had that same longing in his soul, a
longing he most likely would have never recognized as God had God not set upon
him and told him His plan. That’s
exactly what this feels like…..God has set upon me and told me His plan. My life is so full and my heart is even more
open to the Lord than ever.
I feel as though I have finally reached spiritual
adulthood! Oh my, it has taken me surely
long enough to get here!!! The Lord must
be dancing all over heaven to see that I have finally learned something about
Him and about serving Him!
I don’t have children but I have watched those who do and
I’ve seen the joy written on their faces when they feel their child has finally
“gotten it”. It’s as though all those
years of teaching and guiding has finally yielded a harvest and they can now
sit back and see the beauty of that harvest working in their child.
That must be how Jesus feels about me today. Years invested in gentle nudges, loving
embraces and, at times, the rod of correction for ways in which I’ve walked far
from Him. Now, at last, I feel as though
He looks down on me and smiles. I am his
daughter, the progeny of so much sacrifice on His part. What a joy it must be for Him to finally
behold what He planted blooming in my spirit!
Peace and contentment are prizes of untold value and to be
cherished as a reward of walking with the Lord.
“Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.” James 3:18 (NIV) I am so very thankful I have learned to walk
in peace and to allow contentment to rule in my heart and mind. I’m not perfect just forgiven; but this feels
pretty close to being exactly where I have hoped to be for my entire Christian
journey!
