Have you started to long for spring yet? The allure of flowers and greenery everywhere appeals when our world has been white (in the North) for so long, or brown, in regions where shovelling snow isn’t a winter activity. Our hearts start longing for colour and pleasing scents, and wearing lighter, brighter clothes. These are the longings of the winter-weary, and soon the calendar will turn a page. Nature will then spring back to life in all its glory, bringing delight and fulfilling those longings.

But what about the longings of our hearts that no one sees? They can be tangible or intangible desires, and are whatever we think will complete our lives. But what do we long for on a spiritual level? The answer to a long-prayed-for prayer? The fulfillment of a hope tucked deeply into the secret place of our hearts?

But do we long for God, or for what He can do for us? Have you ever considered that question? This quote, attributed to 14^th-Century theologian Meister Eckhart, states, “The soul must long for God in order to be set aflame by God’s love; but if the soul cannot yet feel the longing, then it must long for the longing. To long for the longing is also from God.”

That sounds like an amazing roadmap to entering into the deeper places with God, longing for Him, or longing for that longing. The Bible tells us to “Seek and you will find” (Matthew 7:7), and longing is a great gateway to enter The Seeking Place, the place where we find Him.

In his book Finding Favor with the King, Tommy Tenney writes, “We ‘go at prayer’ as if we are plugging coins into the Supreme Slot Machine, hoping He will spit out winnings to us—while at the same time we are envious of the rest of the spiritual gamblers and their ‘gifts.’” 

Have we ever approached God as if we have a handful of coins ready to plug into the Supreme Slot Machine? That’s a far cry from longing for God, but is it how we sometimes approach Him? What if we started with longing for HIM, to know Him, and not for what He can do for us? One begins with love; the other is like a consumer transaction: I pray, and I expect Him to give me what I want.

Longings live deeply within our souls. Many of them are placed there by God and draw us to Him. Some belong to the realm of hopes and dreams, and it’s not wrong to long for many of them. But where does your longing for God fit in? In the book of Psalms, we see the raw longings of the Psalmists. Often, they express feelings and emotions we experience but can’t necessarily put into words. Hymn writers also give voice to longings we can’t articulate ourselves, or do it better than we can. Allow their words to ignite that longing in your soul, and allow your deep inner being, in Eckhart’s words, “to be set aflame by God’s love.”

During this season of Lent, let’s focus our longings on the who of God and lean in and seek His heart.

“For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.”

Psalm 107:9 (ESV)

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