Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Longings

Pr 13:12 says "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life."

The subject of longings is one that seems to be coming up in my conversations on a regular basis right now. People longing for their dreams, people longing for their mates, people longing for a change, people just longing...

The Lord began to speak to me about longings. Sometimes in the midst of wanting to avoid hope deferred or to avoid the attacks of the enemy, people avoid the longing. It seems easier to squelch the longing, push it down, and pretend like it doesn't exist. We believe that we are helping ourselves function, but there is a slight problem. We begin to live in denial......denial of our heart's longing. Instead of learning how to embrace the longing, we avoid it.

So I may be talking in generalities so let me talk a little more specific. Say you are a single young woman who would one day like to be married and have a family. It's a longing that is very real and very true. But sometimes the enemy attacks and makes you feel undesired, undeserving, and everything else in between. So the easiest way to live is to push down the desire and wait. But in the waiting it can seem so hopeless and like there is nothing you can do. So many swing to the opposite. The flip side of the coin is to engage the longing in an improper way. By dwelling, worrying, and fantasizing. 

Obviously the correct answer is to "take the longing to the Lord." But sometimes cliche' statements seem to hold very little power. They don't seem to convey a practical way of handling the age-old truth of taking it to the Lord. Maybe I am just speaking for me, but I tend to take the longing to the Lord, let go, and then if it arises again, squelch it.

I think the kingdom way is not to avoid it.....not to fantasize, but to embrace it with purpose. I am learning that I have not done this very well in the past. I believe there has to be a healthy way to engage heartfelt full longing without wavering to and fro.

There is a place in the psalms where David says, "All my longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you." 

To have your longing open before the Lord means you can't hide it or manipulate it. You allow yourself to feel the raw emotions that are evoked by such a place of yearning.

So what does this look like. Instead of having a longing but being too scared to feel that deeply for something you don't have....why not take a healthy amount of time to embrace that longing. Now, I'm not talking about dwelling from it, but take some time to feel deeply what you want, let it drive you to fasting and intercession for what God has for you. Truly embracing it and leting it lie open before the Lord.

So for me..right now.....I am in a season of letting my desires rise to the surface. Letting my longings truly be that....something I long for. Letting my sighs not be hidden, and being determined to long rightly. With purpose and vision for the "PROMISE" from the Lord. Because for me, that is the key. Living from faith for what God has for me coupled with the understanding that in the "now" I must embrace that which seems overwhelming.

A thought fulfilled doesn't produce a tree of life... .....An idea fulfilled doesn't produce it either. BUT a longing fullfilled does.  So I am now determined to long, that I may be fulfilled.

3 comments:

Beverly Gibson said...

Thank you for this word of encouragement over our longings. You have stirred me to uncork the bottle of longings that hope deferred has kept locked up. To bring them before the Lord and let Him blow His breath of hope and love into them again. Thank you.

Hillarie Smith said...

I read your post yesterday and then last night spent some time reading some of a book I have by Andrew Murray. I wanted to share some things he wrote:

"Let us now, each one forgetting himself, think of the great company of God, and the saints throughout the world who are all waiting on Him. And let us all join in the fervent prayer for each other: 'Let none that wait on thee be ashamed." ... They just need what we all need, the living assurance that waiting on God can never be in vain. Let us remember, all who are in danger of fainting or being weary, and unite in the cry, 'Let none that wait on thee be ashamed.'

With our deep longings comes lots of waiting sometimes. But it is His promises and and our hope in Him that carry us through.

I have walked through intense seasons of waiting and longing and have seen fruitfulness in barren places. Your post and the words I read last night remind me to pray for those who are longing and waiting.

JoyLynn said...

Thanks for sharing this... it hit home with me tonight and I needed to hear it AND I got to share it with someone else too!!
Love you lots :)