A woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years, and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but instead had become worse— after hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak. For she had been saying to herself, “If I just touch His garments, I will get well. Mark 5:25-28
Because of the extraordinary greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” II Corinthians 12:7-9a
There are wants, and there are longings. They are not the same. We want all kinds of things. We want to lose weight, get a new car, have a beach house, find a new job, win the lottery, get married, have children, retire and more. Some of these wants are fleeting at best. Others have a bit more staying power. Either way, they are wants. And wants tend to be driven by a desire for something that will bring us pleasure. However, getting what we want may satisfy us at least for awhile, but it doesn’t change us.
Longings, however, are very different. They express something that comes from deep within that ultimately turns us to God who alone is able to meet these profound yearnings we feel. The woman with the hemorrhage had a longing to be free from her chronic illness. So she reached out to Jesus believing that merely touching the edge of His garment would bring healing to her body. And it did.
Likewise, Paul had a deep longing to be delivered from a thorn in the flesh. No doubt he believed that his ability to serve the Lord would be better if this impalement could be removed from him. So just like the woman, he turned to God. In fact, he turned to God three times with his longing. But in his case, his physical ailment remained. Instead he was given the grace he needed to bear it.
We never know which list we will be on when we turn to God with our longings. Will we be like the woman or like Paul? Whatever the outcome, we can rest in the promise that God does indeed hear the longings of our heart. And because He loves us with an everlasting love, He will give us what we need the most to satisfy our longing. We just have to trust him.
One of the longings my wife and I had was for a church home in retirement that fits who we are and would allow us to continue to grow and serve. This is something that we talked about long before we retired and was intensified after we moved to Tennessee. After several months of diligent searching, we were beginning to get discouraged. There were churches we could join, but none seemed to be right for us. I won’t bore you with the details, but there were several things that were foundational in our looking that we just weren’t sure we could find.
God heard the longing of our heart. We began attending a former United Methodist Church that is now non-denominational. However, their pastor was retiring. We were unsure what direction the church might take in the future and who the new pastor might be. As it turned out, the church called a former Baptist pastor who in many ways seems to be just what we had longed for. God’s answer to our longing was confirmed during a recent lunch with two of the associate pastors. If all goes as planned, we will join that church soon after the new pastor arrives.
I don’t know what kind of longings you have, and I don’t know how God is going to answer them. He may act mightily on your behalf and give you exactly what you longed for. Or he may give you the grace to persevere. Whatever He gives will come from His heart of love for you. Your longings matter supremely to Him. And He will be at work for good on your behalf. Trust Him.