THE LONGINGS OF OUR SOUL

Many days a voice inside my mind cries out, "there just has to be more than this". Do any of you hear that same voice inside? As far back as my childhood I have always felt the sense of inconsolable longing. I would look up into the heavens and its vastness and feel there is something so far beyond wrhat I see and I would long. I would be out in nature and look at the mountains and think that there's something so much bigger than me and I would long. I would look out over the ocean and watch the sun set over the vast horizon and I would long. I would sit inside an Anglican Church and hear the songs, observe the liturgy being participated in, and the taking of communion and I would feel, even though I did not understand what was going on, a sense of longing.

Have you unfulfilled longings that are unsatisfied? Deep inside I think we all feel there is something more, something bigger, better, and grander than what meets the eye.We all long for many things: beauty, happiness, joy, love, good health, harmonious relationships, meaningful lives, safety, security, peace, and prosperity. Sadly, most of us have found that we cannot even find fulfillment in these in a fallen world and when we do, we find both that we can lose them in an instant or we find that they in themselves do not satisfy us.

This is because deep inside we know that there is something more. We join all of creation with this insatiable longing for something more.The apostle Paul says that all of creation is groaning for this "something more",

"For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."
Romans 8;22-25 ESV

We know what we see and experience is neither ultimate nor is it final. We know there is more. CS Lewis, who has helped me to understand the nature of my desires and longings like no one else wrote,
"It was when I was happiest that I longed most… The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing… To find a place where all the beauty came from."

God is so gracious to give us these sweet longings in our soul. I believe that all of our longings point to what is our true, deepest, and ultimate longing, which is for heaven. We long for heaven because it is there that Jesus lives, rules, and reigns. Heaven is a world of perfect, ineffable, infinite, and eternal love. Here on earth we see but black and white, but there there is color. Here we live in shadow, but we know that there it is substance and light. Heaven is our ultimate destination toward which we are all moving.

When we see and experience for ourselves,heaven for what it truly is, we will become aware of how big, grand, and glorious it is in comparison to anything that this world has to offer us. Whatever there was in this old life will be swallowed up by the beauty and grandeur of the real thing. All this will happen because of who is there; we will see God in the face of Jesus Christ.

We only see glimpses of heaven here, as if looking through a portal; but they are only that, glimpses.
For example, miracles and supernatural events and experiences provide such glimpses to be sure. We 
all long for miracles. I have seen several extraordinary ones in my life. The apostle John referred to miracles as "signs" (Ex. John 2:11,23). Signs are pointers that point beyond themselves to something else.  The feeding of the 5000 was a "sign", for the people who ate that day became hungry again. It is Jesus who is the true bread, Jesus who is the true life. The true miracle of every miracle is Jesus. He is more than a sign, He is ultimate reality and the source of all light and all life.

Heaven is our true home and the home we really long for. Jesus is the way to it (John 14:6) and Jesus is the destination. So the longing for home iis really a longing for heaven and our longing for heaven is really a longing for Jesus,

We want more than healing of our illnesses, more than bread that will satisfy our appetites, more than an exotic trip that will satisfy our craving for beauty and peace. We want more than marriage, family, and friendships which satisfy our deep need to love and be loved. Our longings run deeper than
temporary satisfactions.Our deepest desires are not for miracles/signs but for what the miracles/signs point to. We want heaven, we want Jesus. C.S. Lewis understood this and wrote, “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world."
Another time he said,
There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else. . . . It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. . . . All your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered
just beyond the grasp of your consciousness. The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it. C. S. Lewis

May we never make signs and this world substitutes for our deepest longings no matter what good or bad this life and this world bring us. Jonathan Edwards exhorts us to stay focused on the reality of heaven, God, and Jesus:

"The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives. or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. They are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the ocean. Therefore it becomes us to spend this life only as a journey toward heaven, as it becomes us to make the seeking of our highest end and proper good, the whole work of our lives; to which we should subordinate all other concerns of life. Why should we labour for, or set our hearts on anything
else, but that which is our proper end, and true happiness?"

Augustine said, “Oh Lord thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts can find no rest except we find it in Thee.” The heart of man is full of restlessness and longing. C.S. Lewis says that "our best havings are our wantings." We are both afflicted and blessed with a chronic restlessness, an insatiable soul-thirst to both "have" and to " want" C.S. describes joy as both in "wanting" and "having".
"The very nature of joy makes nonsense of our common distinction between having and wanting. There, to have is to want to want is to have. Thus, the very moment when I longed to be so stabbed again with joy was itself again such a stabbing." God has given us as a gift this sense of "having" and "wanting" for this reason: that we might keep looking until we find Christ, and that having found him we might be turned back to want Him again and again when we leave His spring to taste of other springs and find them lacking. The more we have a God the more we want him which means, we will always want more of God and we presently experience even in eternity. There will always be more of God to enjoy. Which means there will always be holy longings-forever
"We taste Thee, O Thou living Bread,
And long to feast upon Thee still;
We drink of Thee, the Fountain-head,
And thirst our souls from Thee to fill!"










Bernard of Clairvaix

Longing to know the one in the only one, who is in himself all I have ever longed for in all my desires and longings.
Pastor Bill