9 months of traveling the world, hearing story after story…whether from racers or ministry contacts or strangers or friends back home…one commonality between them all is this: Longing.
No matter what season of life one may be in, no matter what part of the world, somewhere on every path, we are met with a longing.
Longing…
A blessing that can feel like a curse
This deep hole within us…that beckons to be filled.
It’ll lead one from one end of the earth to the other…just to satisfy what our minds tell us will satiate it.
But this world offers nothing…in the everything that the world throws at you…there’s nothing…nothing of substance…
The longing is still there…beckoning even louder than before…demanding that its empty parts be filled up.
Through all its cries, there’s an underlying statement that all cries share: I’m not satisfied.
And our mind will come up with ways to satisfy it. With the help and aide of the world, it will suggest a husband, a fling, a new job, early retirement, a new city, a different church, different friends, different family, no family, a house, a baby, a dog, a new diet, a vacation…and once you’ve tried it all…the longing is still screaming: Fill me.
Finally you look around…you look at the things you’ve been trying to fill up with, and laced through all of them is a call to Him.
A request to come to Him. To step out…to step out in faith…faith that says He can fill what He says He can fill. We’re not sure that we can, but we take our longing right to Him, and He looks at us, and says:
“Do you believe I’m able to do this?”
We look down at our hand…surprised He’s asking for this.
This longing…that we were so sure would be filled by one of a million different ways. Or maybe not even a million different ways…maybe it was just one way.
Maybe we spent our whole life with this one longing, and we had our hearts comforted by the fact that acquiring what our eyes were fixed on would fill it.
Yet here we are…with the thing our eyes were fixed on…and the longing cries yet again.
So, we look at Him.
We look at His words.
And sometimes our minds can’t grasp how He can possibly fill the hole that we’re feeling.
Because surely this hole can’t possibly be filled with an intangible.
It’s too strong to not require a tangible…
It surely requires something we can hold…
And absolutely must require something we can explain…
But I can’t explain Him…
So, Lord…how?
How can we even begin to let you fill it?
It didn’t take faith for me to pray a salvation prayer.
It didn’t take faith for me to decide heaven would be better than hell.
It didn’t take faith for me to see how being morally good would be more beneficial than being corrupt.
It didn’t take faith for any of those things…
But giving up the thing I would choose…
Giving up the thing that I can see and explain…
The thing that so many others have chosen to satisfy their own heart cry for more…
Giving that up…when it means delaying what feels like will be the satisfaction of it…
But in reality is only another short-lived anecdote…
Giving that up…in exchange for a promise.
That takes faith.
“Do you believe I’m able to do this?” (Matthew 9:28)
Do I believe He’s able to do this?
Do you believe He’s able to do this?
