Longing for what is Best.

For the last few months I have been wrestling with a number of desires and longings of my heart, some good and some bad, that I have been having to give to the Lord for a while now and it has gotten to the point where it is draining and arduous to do so.

Recently I was reading the book Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliott which I would highly recommend to anyone (I have read it 4 times now.) and I came to quote from her journal where she wrote...

"My heart was saying, 'Lord, remove this longing or give me that for which I long.', but the Lord was answering me, 'I must teach you to long for what is better.' "

In that chapter she talked about Deuteronomy 8 which is a passage that talks about how the Lord humbled the Israelites in the wilderness by causing them to be hungry and then feeding them with the Manna from heaven. Elisabeth talks about how we as God children are not meant to live on natural earthly bread but rather the supernatural bread from heaven and so our earthly desires just will not do. The Israelites were not longing for bread, they wanted the food they had enjoyed in Egypt...meat...vegetables...etc. and likewise I often do not long for the the bread that came down from Heaven, Jesus (John 6), at least not when it comes down to my natural desires, I don't want to learn the discipline of bringing my natural desires for community and relationship and love and acceptance and adventure under the Lordship of Christ, I want him to give me the things I long for or take away the longing, not to give me himself, His broken body and blood, and say "Peace, child, this is enough."

"Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the LORD promised on oath to your ancestors. Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you."  ~ Deuteronomy 8:1-5

 The desire of God's heart behind giving the commands that He does to the Israelites is for their greater joy, and that it may go well with them and they may prosper in the land that he was giving them and so that it would go well with them in the end, (8:16). This shows me that the Lord recognizes that it isn't easy and that he feels my pain and longing and is able to sympathize with me as a faithful high priest, but it also shows me that he is after my greatest joy in the things that he allows into my life and by the things that he commands, that means this longing and aching is for my good...even if I just want it to go away so I can stop caring so much, but he made to care deeply.

Really when it comes down to it God is demonstrating his great love and mercy towards me by not giving me the things that I long for most, because in not giving them to me I am getting him in exchange. For God to deprive me of every thing that I long for that is only a shadow of the substance of Christ in order to give me more of himself or to enlarge my heart to receive more of him by being in need and being shown that His grace is sufficient for me in my weakness, that is truly Love, that is truly mercy. Like a father depriving his son of what he wants to give him what he needs. I wish I better understood and believed that.

I long to be like Mary who chose what was best by sitting at the Lord's feet and desiring him rather than running about and being worried and upset about much when only one thing was needed...to choose what is best by choosing the Body and Blood of Christ over her security and comfort and future which is what she did when she emptied the alabaster jar over him, which many scholars agree was probably a wedding dowry to help secure her a husband and with a husband rights and a future. Tearing off a piece of the bread during communion and dipping it into the wine holds so much more meaning now as I recognize that I am tearing off a piece of his flesh that was torn for me to bring me to God and to give me access to the Father, a piece of my daily bread and the word of God that I am supposed to live on torn from the body his son, as He says "Take and eat. I am the bread of life come down from heaven to be given for the sins of the world that if you eat of my flesh and drink my blood you will never hunger or thirst again. Just keep coming back for more. this is what you were made for. Natural food will never suffice. Come to the waters you who are thirsty. Come."

 “Come, all you who are thirsty,
   come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
   come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
   without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
   and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
   and you will delight in the richest of fare.
Give ear and come to me;
   listen, that you may live." ~ Isaiah 55:1-3