“In her deep anguish, Hannah prayed to the LORD, weeping bitterly.” ~ 1 Samuel 1:10
“My soul is in deep anguish. How long, LORD, how long?” ~ Psalm 6:3
“During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.” ~Hebrews 5:7
What are you longing for right now? What strong yearnings for what is out of your reach might you be experiencing on this part of your journey? What is to be done with these aches that sweep over us from often unexpected directions?
Our longings can open deep spaces within us to the hesed, the incredible mercy of God if, and this is a big if, we learn what to do with them.
Lean In
The first step is a big one! Lean into that longing. Despite the initial pain, admit that your yearning is there. Denying that longing can tie you in knots! Embrace the idea that you and everyone else were wired for the Garden, but here “east of Eden,” we are feeling the loss of God’s perfect ideal. We were not created to know, lack, or live in conflict with those around us. We were not created for broken promises and shattered dreams. We were not created for chaos, shame, and barren lives. But we were created to enjoy a perfect sense of identity in Christ as we stay within God’s loving, fruit-bearing, bringing-order-out-of-chaos design for us. We were made for more than mere survival, so what do we do with that yawning space between real and ideal? Hope rises in us when we face those aches because we can invite God to inhabit the gap between what is and what we sense ought to be. With God in our gap, we can experience longings with hope and without bitterness and shame. We can cry out our lament without embarrassment, to Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, who understands our broken dreams. We will be received with His hesed, this mind-blowing ability to love even His enemies, give unexpected favor to the undeserving, and surprising grace to the ungrateful.
Love those Longings
The next step is to learn to love our longings because those yearnings can draw us to God and a deeper understanding of His original intent for us. With time, prayer, and good counseling, we can discover where our longings for the Garden became obsessions and addictions. When we own and appreciate our longings, offer them to a faithful, good God and risk vulnerability with safe others, we take the first steps out of the shadows and into God’s light. Our longings can open our ears to God’s whisper and open our hearts to His comfort and healing.
The Bible is a treasure-house of stories in which people like Hannah and David leaned into their longings. Instead of burying their heartaches, they gave voice to them in prayers and poems. You and I can do the same. We can face the fact that none of us get a pass from the reality that life hurts and unmet yearnings ache. But we can bring our longings to God, crying out our protest that life is not as it should be. Like Jeremiah, we must lament until we are spent, for that is the moment we will finally make room for God’s hesed.
Praise
The good news is that God lives with us in our raw reality and He does not abandon us out here in the tumbleweeds. Despite not having what ought to be, Jeremiah came to a place of praise when he declared, “Because of the Lord’s great hesed we are not consumed” (Lamentations 3:22). God’s incredible compassion can help us overflow with the kind of bruised praise that only comes from lament. Don’t be afraid to lean into your longings and lament, for this act of worship can lead you to praise no longer hindered and tainted by self. This praise-after-lament rises from our broken places making room for a new reality: our Immanuel (God with us) who sees our tears, hears our hearts, and enters into our suffering with us.
Jesus is still saying, “I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you” (John 14:18).
Your Turn: What do you need to lament? How willing are you to lament until spent, trusting God to meet you where you are?
Song for Inspiration:
Grow Anyway 