Musings with black bgrd.

“Back in middle school I asked my mom, “Why shouldn’t I just go party with all of the other kids?” I remember her saying, “Because you want More.” I am almost twenty-two years old now and I still want more. I want more from/for myself. I want more from my relationships. I want More from this life.”

These words from my daughter’s journal give a glimpse of her journey of desire. Whether we are thirteen or sixty we all know what it is to long for more – to want passion, purpose, and people in our lives who engage in mutually fulfilling relationships. In fact, if you were to write out right now what you long for – what you ache for, dream about, persistently pray for – I doubt that anyone would read your words and chide you, “Oh, you shouldn’t want that.” When we can articulate our heart’s desire, we mostly long for good things.

The next question that inevitably arises is, “Why doesn’t God give us what we want?” Why doesn’t he grant our requests for husbands who are spiritual leaders, children who love and serve God, and friends who are there for us?

When our longings for legitimate, good things and our confusion about God’s delay or seeming refusal to give us what we want collide, we might determine to take care of our needs ourselves. As the songwriter crooned, this is when we “go looking for love in all the wrong places.” We search for something that will relieve the pain and disappointment in life and allow us to recreate a world – even for a few hours – that takes care of us.

That’s how addiction grows and gains a grip on our hearts and souls. At about my daughter’s age – in my early twenties – I discovered alcohol. I found something that erased the pain, eased my uptight tendencies, and let me off the hook from wanting so much. It made everything better until it made everything worse, but by then I was hooked.

Maybe you can relate. People-pleasing, food, work, sex, perfectionism, gambling -- allure us into chasing a feeling, a release, a sustained comfort, a sense of ease – a coming home. That is what addiction is all about – feeling exiled from what we were made for – the elusive More, we become willing to go to desperate and destructive lengths to come home. Of course this home of addiction turns out to be a haunted house, full of ghosts and darkness, which only intensifies our longings.

Make a list of all the things you thought would satisfy you, only to discover they faded as your longings grew. Meditate on 2 Corinthians 4:18: “There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.”

Ultimately, we long for heaven where we will experience the fullness of our longings. We will be free from suffering and struggling. We will rejoice with delight and rest in being made new, without any effort of our own. But we are not very good at waiting. I remember pointing this out to one of my young clients. She had just returned from inpatient treatment for her heroin addiction. “Don’t tell me to wait for heaven,” she snapped. “I am only nineteen years old! I need something right now!”

The tension between wanting more and waiting for it can be excruciating and heartbreaking. In fact, our longings can just break us – break our backs, break our hearts, and break our spirits. Ernest Hemingway wrote, “The world breaks us all,” and then he killed himself unable to bear the staggering weight of all his brokenness.

Sometimes it’s good to have a literal picture of our brokenness. Find a piece of glass. I used a large glass platter. Now find a safe place and a hammer. Smash your piece of glass into a million pieces. Let it represent your brokenness. Perhaps it is a broken dream, a failed marriage, a difficult relationships, financial ruin, or even spiritual distress that painfully reminds you that you have wanted good things only to find yourself still wanting. As you look at the sharp, jagged pieces of your brokenness, you can understand the pain. Brokenness wounds us.

Did you know that God is broken? The New Testament tells us that He was broken for us (1 Corinthians 11). This Scripture is talking about Christ’s body – about that day when Jesus surrendered His longings, hung naked, nailed to a cross and said, “Father forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). For they know not what they do. If there ever was a phrase that described us and our pursuit to fulfill our longings, this was it.

I believe in this story God is saying, “I give you My Son, broken for you, My deepest wound to forgive and heal your deepest wound.” Our wounds are where His wound – His love – can get in.

Consider offering all your brokenness and woundedness to God for His redemptive touch. Don’t tell Him how to fix it, heal you, or reshape your brokenness. Just offer it to Him, trusting that “by His wounds, we are healed” (Isaiah 53:2-6). If you can, leave your literal broken pieces of glass in disarray for a year. Mark this date. In one year return to the ruins and contemplate God’s healing presence in your life. You might want to shape the broken pieces into a mosaic to memorialize God joining you in your wounds.

“I surrender all. All to Jesus I surrender. I surrender all.” I’ve sung those words and not had a clue what they meant. I’ve wanted to mean them and tried to let go, only to find myself running my own life again. The very thought of surrender seemed like a lot of work!

Last year I traveled with a group from my church to Israel. One day we visited the site reported to be the cave of the demoniac in Mark 5. Scripture records that, “He had been tied up many times with chains and rope, but . . . . No one was strong enough to tame him.” I identified with this man’s self-will run riot. In the New Testament story, Jesus orders the demons that held this man in bondage to go into a herd of pigs. Crazed, the pigs ran over a cliff into the Sea of Galilee.

My pastor, who was with us on the trip, encouraged us to find a rock at this site and write on it something we wanted to surrender to God. He told us that we would then go to a cliff overlooking the Sea of Galilee and throw our rocks into the sea. I remember looking at my rock, not sure of what to write. I thought, “What if I really could get rid of one thing? What would it be?”

I initially wrote my most overtly destructive addiction: alcoholism. Then I wrote the more subversive addiction that just as surely erodes my soul and robs me of joy: people-pleasing. And then I wrote the addiction that just wears me out: workaholism. I looked at my rock and imagined what my life would be like without these. Tears began to stream down my face.

And then I heard – I really did hear – Jesus speaking in my spirit: “Sharon, I never asked you not to drink or work or try so hard. I just miss you when you do.”

My heart nearly stopped. Could it be true? The really big deal about our sin is that it separates us from God. In that moment, I felt God’s presence. In surrendering to Him, I discovered the sweet truth – that He is surrendered to me. In wanting Him, I realized that He wants me. And in missing Him, I felt the awe and wonder of hearing that He missed me.

This week, during the “Now what? moments” of your day – when you stop working, taking care of others, and planning your next move – when you begin to feel lonely, restless, or empty, surrender that moment to Him. Don’t surrender to Him so that He’ll make the loneliness, restlessness, or emptiness go away. Surrender to Him to be with Him. Surrender to not craving something from God – but craving God. And in that sweet surrender discover that God doesn’t want something from you. He wants you.

About a year ago I traveled to speak to a group of women in Alabama. As soon as I arrived one of the women greeted me warmly, “We just loved reading your book, Bravehearts.” I answered, “Thank you. I wrote that book almost six years ago. A lot has changed in my life since then.” Innocently she replied with her sweet Southern accent, “Well, we can’t wait to hear! We just hope it’s all good!”

Something in my heart twisted. The past six years rewound through my brain. There had been a lot of disappointment. Shattered dreams. Heart ache. But I knew my final answer, “I wouldn’t trade these last six years for anything!” I knew that God had been in the process of showing me what I most deeply wanted.

We begin our adult lives with a lot of ideals for how life ought to be. When the real crowds out the ideal, we turn in our dreams for a few schemes of how we can get what we want. I could certainly recount the ways that I had tried to fix my life, save my life, create my life, keep my life on track – all bringing me to the resolution that I could not set myself free. I must be set free!

Jesus issues an invitation for us on this journey of desire: “Come! Is anyone thirsty? Come! All who will, come and drink, Drink freely of the Water of Life! (Revelation 22:17). He waits patiently for thirsty women – like us – to discover that He is the true longing of our hearts.

When I am asked the heart wrenching question, “Why doesn’t God give us what we want?” I know that I am not smart enough to answer that question for everyone. But I am learning that God knows the context in which I am most likely to develop an intimate relationship with Him. For me that has been learning in some humbling and humiliating places that God really does love me when I am good for nothing. His love for me has compelled me to begin to want Him when He seems good for nothing. In other words, I want Him when He is not acting like a vending machine in my life, giving me everything that I ask for. I just want Him, because I love Him.

I remember sitting with a group of women not too long ago talking about this. One dear woman who had just unexpectedly lost her husband of thirty years to a heart attack said, “Well, if this is God’s context for me, then ‘No thank you.’” Her honest response reminds us that it is scary to believe that He is wooing us – loving us – in the most painful times of life to Himself.

Henri Nouwen wrote, “The hardness of God is softer than the kindness of men, because His compulsion is our liberation.” God is relentless in freeing us from ourselves so that we might be free to want Him. I used to believe that we were all desperately searching for God, but my experience of redemption in the broken places of my story has taught me the deeper truth is that God is searching for us. Redemption does not mean that God meets our needs and then our souls stop longing. We don’t give up craving. We give in to craving God.

Musings

by Sharon

PONDERINGS