“So I wait for you …”

One thing I think we fail to remind or demonstrate to each other often or well enough is that God understands and is present with us in times of emptiness, longing, loss, and discontent, and longs to open our eyes to some of His “higher thoughts” during those times.

I think we often partner with Him in better in encouraging others to “find the secret of being content in all things” (Phillipians 4:12)than we do in the “mourning with those who are mourning” (Romans 12:15), or providing encouragement and companionship during their periods of emptiness and testing (Matthew 4). We see someone depressed and want to cheer them up; we see someone focusing on a lot of negative and we want to help them see the blessings in their lives.

But in doing so, I think we sometimes miss an important detour God is taking with them. Everything is not right here; we are still living in the not yet.  All around us,people relate to each other out of just about every motive except love. We see people with basic needs unmet; we see others swimming in a swirling pool of riches and discontent. And often when we attempt to help someone in either camp find real, meaningful and lasting change, we find our attempts met with anything from quiet resentment or mistrust, to open hostility.

But we are not the only ones longing for change.

God is also longing for change.

He understands unfulfilled longing, and is present with us.

Matthew 23:37

New Living Translation (NLT)

Jesus Grieves over Jerusalem

³⁷ “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me.

 

A few other illustrations came to mind this morning as I thought this over …

 

Matthew9:15

New Living Translation (NLT)

¹⁵ Jesus replied, “Do wedding guests mourn while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I am passionate about the good news that God is available to us at all times, in all places. I don’t believe God is ever “unavailable” to us. But we don’t get to be with Him like the people we read about in the gospels. They got to see Him with their eyes. Touch Him. Hear Him with their ears.

And yes, I am also passionate about the good news that we carry Him with us where we go; that we can be a point of presence for others to experience Him through at any time, in any place. At any moment we can feed someone, give them a cup of water, cover them to bring relief from shame, and visit them in life’s real and virtual prisons – including being present with them in their periods of emptiness and testing.

Proverbs17:17

New Living Translation (NLT)

¹⁷ A friend is always loyal,
    and a brother is born to help in time of need.

Ecclesiastes4:9-12

New Living Translation (NLT)

⁹ Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. ¹⁰ If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. ¹¹ Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? ¹² A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.

But some day, you know, we will see Him face to face.  Clearly. Someday we will embrace Him. Someday we will hear His voice, with our ears, tell us He loves us. Someday we will hear His voice, out loud, call us His children.

And some day, the love we experience through each other will be pure – free of even unwanted impurities – and we will know it. No longer looking (straining?) to see the pure love beyond each others often conflicted motives, we will simply open our arms and hearts wide to receive everything that is given.

That is where we are going, and we are not there yet.

 

“Sing over me a new song; sing over me what you’ve been all along. So I wait and wait and wait, for you … how long to wait, to wait, to wait, to wait for you? Oh,how I’m longing.”

In the years from 2000-2010, most everything in my life looked good on the surface. Looking at myself from the outside, I would have told myself to be content and thankful for what I had in my life. But it was regrettably shallow in some places, dangerously shallow in others, and below that surface were very painful circumstances and struggles I couldn’t see a way out of. It certainly didn’t seem likely that it would be within God’s will, from what I knew about Him, for my circumstances to change, so I rarely prayed for that.  Yet somehow I was certain that even if what seemed to be a paradox of broken circumstances in my life was not His design, redeeming it was His specialty. So I wrote a song asking Him to speak new life into my life, to speak into my life His greater things that I believed would have power over all the lesser things and lesser motives that filled my life. 

My greatest friends during those years became those who sat and listened, recognized how painful my circumstances and struggles were, and instead of minimizing or getting caught up in trying to solve those things that could not be solved by my and their efforts alone, instead, partnered with God ins peaking and encouraging His greater realities into my life.  I don’t think any of us saw it coming (no one told me if they did), but suddenly, one day, God’s greater realities were the wings I needed as most of my reality (and circumstances with it) suddenly crumbled and the ground fell apart beneath my feet.

He had answered my prayer, my song. He had sung a new song over me; given me wings to take flight and follow Him to a new world as my old world fell apart.

 

Matthew 4:1-3

New Living Translation (NLT)

TheTemptation of Jesus

4 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. ² For forty days and forty nights he fasted and became very hungry.

³ During that time the devil^[a] came and said to him, ….

Before I quote the rest of verse 3, stop and think for a moment. When you are empty and longing, in those moments where all you are aware of is unfulfilled desire, what does the enemy point out first? What does he suggest to you? Fill in the blank …

What He said to Jesus was, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.” For me, he varies it a bit. He suggests things that are within my power … or that seem to be. “You know, if you just did this, you could have this. You’re smart enough. You can pull it off.” Or, “relief is as close as … and nobody will know.” Or, “here is the answer to all your troubles. Don’t pay any attention to all the cautions people offer about this, everybody has an opinion. You can have this right now and work out the details later. Follow your heart.” (Knowing my heart is starving).

Jesus has experienced periods of emptiness, unfulfilled longing, and the parade of tempting counterfeits that comes along with them,and He is ready and willing to be present with those who are walking through periods of emptiness and testing.  Are we?