Little Pools of Desire

Do you long to be happy, to be accepted, to be successful, to be recognized, to be loved? Do you long for your life to mean something? Do you long for intimacy with someone, someone you can actually trust?
Longings.
They are like little pools we frantically run around trying to keep full, while they always seem to be draining dry.
We long for moms who care for us, for dads to be proud of us. We long to be understood, to be wanted, to be desirable, to feel safe.
The world tells us we shouldn't have to live with unfulfilled longings, and our flesh says "amen" to that. We raise fists in the air, shouting "I deserve to be happy", as if feeling sad was somehow a personal attack.
Living with unfulfilled longings tests our patience with God, makes us question if following Him is worth it. When our drive to fulfill longings competes with His purpose in our lives, a train wreck seems like a reasonable alternative, if it will get us off His track and allow us to satisfy our longings without reserve, to pursue our own happiness without restraint.
Longings.
They control us and we let them.
Am I crazy to think that they don't have to, that they shouldn't?
What are your pools of longing?
How frightening is it for you to think that they might never be filled?

God has made us with needs and He has given us all things to enjoy, but do we always have to be driven to satisfy a longing as soon as we have it? Why do we cling to those satisfactions as our only means of joy, as if they were our life? Do you ever find God having to pry your fingers open from clutching these earthly joys?

Here's a thought. Why not consider letting your longings go unfulfilled?
Whaaat????
"Why would I consider that?", you may ask, "what would be the purpose in it?"
If we are always rushing to fill up our longings, constantly checking the levels of our pools of longing, comparing the fullness of ours with those of our neighbors, always insisting on finding satisfaction here on earth, using other people to make us feel better about our unfulfilled longings, if we are always doing that, we will never give God a chance, never know Him to be satisfying.
There is an even sadder truth here.
After all that filling of little pools, we will never really know satisfaction. Because this world is incapable of satisfying our longings, all we will really know in the end is disappointment, jealousy and fear.

David found satisfaction for his soul through the emptiness of his physical longings; his empty pools of desire became windows to the spiritual.

"My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food" 

"Because your steadfast love is better than life" 

psalm63

I propose an idea.

Let's invent a "longing fast", a fast where you don't seek to "feed" your longings, but allow them to experience hunger.
Example #1: Let's say you are craving your favorite comfort food, like warm gooey chocolate brownies. Instead of running to find some chocolatey gooey yum, go on a longing fast; sit with that craving unsatisfied while you spiritually crave the Lord with that same kind of desire.
Example #2: You find yourself longing to have a boyfriend. You might even have one in mind and dream about him loving you. Go on a longing fast. Resist the urge to maneuver your way to him. Determine to deny yourself the satisfaction of that desire, starve it for awhile, so that you will long for the Lord instead. Take all that longing that you dream about and turn that longing into "God longing". Satisfy your longing in the Lord, the lover of your soul.
Example #3: Write your own story of longing. How will you choose to go "hungry", and hunger for the Lord?

I realize that some of you have experienced too much disappointment over unfulfilled longings. You've hungered for so long, your sufferings are more like spiritual anorexia. Instead of pools, your longings are now deep dark pits. Everything inside you longs to fill that emptiness, but you are afraid. Hopelessness has set in and you believe the lie that joy is no longer available to you, believe the lie that you just aren't worth the trouble. You want to believe that God can make a difference, that He really cares, but if you dare to trust Him and He let's you down, well, who is left? No one! So you don't risk it.

But that dark place, that "valley of the shadow of death" doesn't have to hold fear for you. It can be the most perfect, most right place for you to be, because in that very place where life has no meaning, His love becomes better than life itself, His presence becomes the very breath that you breathe!
In "The Song of a Passionate Heart", David Roper imagines that dark place in the 23rd psalm, and what your encounter with the Lord there will be. "We learn to trust Him in the darkness; when all that is left is the sound of His voice and the knowledge that He is near, when all we can do is slip our hand into His and feel 'the familiar clasp of things divine'."

Reality is that we won't learn to trust Him where there is light and we have confidence in ourselves. We will always turn to those we can see and touch before we will turn to Him. We run, when we should stay, scream, when we should listen, doubt, when we should trust.

"and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, 

When I remember you upon my bed, 

and meditate on you in the watches of the night; 

For you have been my help; 

and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. 

My soul clings to you; 

your right hand upholds me."

psalm63

I'm sorry, but that seems unreasonable. I can't be expected to sing for joy while my life feels so empty and dark! I bet David was able to say that because he was just a naturally happy person. You know what I mean? You know those people that always seem to be joyful. They don't have to work at it because happiness comes easily to them. David probably didn't even feel pain and suffering like I do. 

Then again...

 "I am weary with my sighing;

every night I make my bed swim, 

I dissolve my couch with my tears."  

ps6:6

My tears have been my food day and night, 

while they say to me all day long, where is your God?"

 ps42:3

"Save me, O God, 

for the waters have threatened my life. 

I have sunk in deep mire, and there is no foothold; 

I have come into deep waters, 

and a flood overflows me. 

I am weary with my crying; 

my throat is parched; 

my eyes fail while I wait for my God." 

ps69:1-3

These are the inspired jottings of a boy shepherd, a soldier, a fugitive, and a king, who shows us that true joy comes through praise and worship even in the darkness, especially in the darkness.

Darkened Doorways

In my mind, I keep coming back to the idea that most of my suffering is selfish at the root, and my perspective on unfulfilled longings is more evidence. Like suffering, I see unfulfilled longings as a bad thing; they make me disappointed, discontented, and discouraged. When I have to endure them for any length of time, I pout about it, get testy and irritable. Snatch away my chance for fulfillment and my inner lion will roar. Having to live with unfulfilled longings feels like torture, definitely suffering. I think I should do something about satisfying them, and impulsive choices become my menu of the day. Worst of all, unsatisfied longings creates a deep sinkhole where God seems to have abandoned me, where He can't hear me and I can't hear Him.

We live as if our world exists with two doors, the physical and the spiritual, and we are left to choose one or the other. Naturally, we are going to choose the physical. Our senses are quickly satisfied with real touch, taste and smell, with instant pleasure from what we see and feel. In the end, with so much earthly satisfaction, it is no surprise that we find ourselves little motivated to choose Door #2. We yearn for so many things in this world, and then wonder why we don't yearn for the Lord. You would think that when Door #1 doesn't satisfy, we would be drawn to what God offers in the spiritual realm? You would think that, but it wouldn't usually work that way. In our despair at not being fulfilled, we more often conclude that God has let us down, and if He can't provide our physical needs, how can we trust Him to meet our deeper spiritual needs? So we sit and stare into the emptiness behind the first door; sit in fear, unwilling to risk emptiness behind the second.

Well, this isn't getting me anywhere, how about you? I'm frustrated that I can't pull my gaze away from staring at what I don't have. Can this ever change, can I ever move on from this place?

"For the enemy has persecuted my soul; he has crushed my life to the ground; he has made me dwell in dark places like those who have long been dead. Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed within me; my heart is appalled within me. I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Your doings; I muse on the work of Your hands. I stretch out my hands to You; my soul longs for You as a parched land." ps143:3-6
David's soul was in anguish. He had been anointed king, but instead of living in a palace, he was hiding out in desert caves, hunted by enemies who wanted to kill him. David knew what it was like to be in a dry and weary land where there was no water, to live with his most basic longing unfulfilled. Thirst creates the most intense longing your whole body could ever feel. David took everything he felt and sensed in his physical suffering of longing for water and used it to connect with a most intense longing for the Lord. That desperate need became the conduit to his soul, the conduit to a spiritual level where he longed for God more than his body longed for water.
David found the secret. Through the physical, he made the connection to the spiritual. He saw not two separate doors, but one door leading to the other. How did he make them connect? He borrowed the language of longing. "My soul thirsts for you," he wrote, "my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water."ps63:1

We can't see and touch the spiritual, so physical reality becomes our door. It is through the physical, that we connect to the spiritual, not two separate choices but one leading to the other. David let unfulfilled physical longings lead him to spiritual reality. He turned his longings to "God longings". Does that change your perspective on the deep, empty longings you feel right now? Can your soul thirst for the Lord in a way that surpasses all that you physically long for? Rather than creating distance between you and God, your longings, your sufferings are the very means of connecting you to Him.

I realize that in boldly calling for an acceptance of suffering, I might give the impression of bravery on my part. Don't be fooled. That future scares me as much as it does you. I am the collapsing kind. That's why I am so grateful to Oswald Chambers for being brave enough to write these words.

 "Why shouldn't we experience heartbreak? Through those doorways God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son. Most of us collapse at the first grip of pain. We sit down at the door of God's purpose and enter a slow death through self-pity. And all the so-called Christian sympathy of others helps us to our deathbed. But God will not. He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son, as if to say "Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine." If God can accomplish His purposes in this world through a broken heart, then why not thank Him for breaking yours?"

Count the Cost

It was becoming a common experience. To go anywhere with Jesus was to be jostled and pushed by a huge crowd following him. This time he stopped, turned around and faced us, saying "to follow me, you must hate your mother, father, wife, children, brothers and sisters, even hate your own self. To follow me, you must carry your own cross. Know what it will cost you and decide beforehand that you are willing to make that sacrifice. Don't be like the builder who ran out of funds and had to abandon the project; he was the brunt of many jokes. Or don't be like the king who miscalculated his forces and lost the battle. It would have been better for him to have asked for peace beforehand. Once you have put your hand to the plow, look straight ahead. If you keep glancing back, your furrows are going to look all squiggly. So if you truly want to follow me, you have to give up everything that you have."
Stop.
Don't move.
Think about that.
Does God have the right to ask such a thing of you?
Are you really going to follow Him?
Have you counted the cost?

When it was time for us to move from Mexico, we had to decide what we would bring back and what would stay. It all had to fit on a 4 x 8 flat bed trailer with a 1,000 pound limit. Of course, the first and most important items were the books. I packed 40 boxes of books. There was no way that we could put those on the trailer, the weight alone would make it impossible. So the plan was to mail them to Dubuque, but that had to be done on the US side. Some friends who were making a trip to Texas agreed to take half of them and leave them in a warehouse at the border. Joel later made a trip with the other half, retrieved all boxes and shipped them from the post office. When he came home, he reported successfully having mailed 39 boxes. Ummm, "dear," I said, "there should have been 40 boxes." I would have to wait 2 months before knowing which box had been lost. It seemed like pure torture to wait and trust in the Lord. Oh, how my flesh wanted to start agonizing right away over what was probably gone forever! Finally, after arriving to Dubuque and beginning to unpack, what had been lost gradually surfaced. Mostly, they were replaceable items, but the worst loss was several journals that I had written while in Mexico. Not only could they never be replaced, but they represented the most difficult trial of my spiritual life. I was saddened at losing something so personal, but consoled myself with thoughts of God's sovereign control in the situation. Surely, He had a reason for taking them. Every now and then I thought about those journals, wondered where they ended up, wondered how the Lord used them to bless someone else, until one day, out of the blue, a new thought occurred to me, and I wasn't too thrilled. What if those priceless journals ended up in a garbage dump landfill, buried among all sorts of gross decaying stuff? The very thought felt like a stab to the heart and it hurt. My pride was pricked. Those journals represented my life. I didn't like the idea of my life being tossed in some trash dump. And then it hit me.
That is exactly what my life is, garbage. Isn't that what Paul said, "I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,.. and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ." ph3:8

Why do I do this? Why must I find gain in the life I have lived? Why must I see good in my suffering in order to endure it? Why must I find more value in my life than what Christ has already given me? Reality is that my life, compared to who I am in Christ, is but trash buried in a garbage dump.

Suppose you've been given a big warehouse type space in your life to fill with all that you have or wish you had. Now this imaginary space can include more than just physical possessions. You can store intangible things like abilities and dreams, include relationships, and even body parts.
What would go in your warehouse?
What do you have that...you can't live without?
What do you have that...makes you happy?
What do you have that...you sacrificed in order to get?
What do you have that....makes you feel lovable?
What do you have that...makes you feel useful to God?
What do you have that...makes you feel useful or valuable to others?
What do you have that....you are proud of?
What do you have that...you can't put a price on?
What do you .... hope to have in the future?
What do you .... wish you had right now?
Now let's imagine that you are going to invite Jesus into your warehouse where He can walk around and look at everything you have. As you walk with Him, you will offer Him the pick of anything and everything that He wants to take.
But first, in the corner of this warehouse is a locked room marked "no access granted", and you have the key. You can store in that room anything you want to keep, anything you don't want Jesus to take. What do you put in there?

The things in that room are what rob you of contentment. The things in that room keep you trapped, make your life here on this earth seem worth holding on to. Because you value those things so much, you fear losing them. Because they are a source of happiness, you complain when they fail to satisfy. Because they make you feel good about yourself, you compare them to what others have.

Look at your life in that warehouse.
What is it worth to you?
I'm not advocating that we take everything that we have, load it up on a truck and take it to the municipal dump. I don't believe that is what Jesus meant for us to do when He said those words. I do think, however, that He wants us to change our attitude towards all that we have, change the way we value what we have. He wants us to be willing to let Him help himself to all that is ours. If our value of things is properly placed, we won't mind losing anything, because we will already consider it loss compared to having Christ.

“There is no ongoing spiritual life without this process of letting go. At the precise point where we refuse, growth stops. If we hold tightly to anything given to us, unwilling to let it go when the time comes to let it go or unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used, we stunt the growth of the soul. It is easy to make a mistake here, “If God gave it to me,” we say, “its mine. I can do what I want with it.” No. The truth is that it is ours to thank Him for and ours to offer back to Him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of"
― Elisabeth Elliot

Freedom of Surrender

As I consider whether I suffer or not, I wonder what actually qualifies. Do cold showers or mornings without coffee count as suffering? Who decides how long, how deep, or how wide it has to be?

Webster's dictionary defines suffering as "being forced to endure pain, inconvenience or loss", all three of which are very subjective. Everyone has a different tolerance for pain, and while I may think cold water for a shower is inconvenient, others may find it more convenient than no water. And then there is the matter of loss. What we view as loss is completely in the perception of the sufferer, and depends heavily on what we feel we have a right to have. For example, the world would say "it's your right to be happy above all else", therefore if your marriage makes you unhappy, you should leave it. You have a right to pursue what makes you happy. Our constitution tells us we have a right to freedom, but do we really? Freedom from what? Our politicians say we have a right to health care, to equal pay. My flesh tells me I have a right to a bigger house, or a more comfortable lifestyle; I shouldn't have to do without the latest trends or newest electronics. My flesh also tells me that I have a right to achieve my dreams, to always be treated well; I have a right to get revenge, to be satisfied, to do whatever makes me feel good.
Suffering is being denied what is rightfully mine.

Nancy L DeMoss in her book, "Lies Women Believe", lists as lie #10, "I have my rights".
Some of the things she suggests we wrongly believe we have a right to are...
to be happy
to be understood
to be loved
to a good marriage
to companionship
to romance
to be treated with respect
to be valued and appreciated by your husband, by your children
to rest and time off
to a good night's sleep
to have help with the housework
Do I live like I have rights? Sure I do. To Nancy's list, I would add the right to...
be heard
always have my next meal within 5 hours
get married
give birth
never feel uncomfortable
(which oddly enough conflicts with the one before it)
not be asked to get up once I sit down
never be betrayed
be consulted about everything
have my "day off"
not have my plans changed

This concept of rights creates an imbalance, a false sense of loss, which then creates an illusion of suffering. My right "to be happy" can, all by itself, completely tip the scale and slide me into a place of suffering where I don't belong.
Suffering, I remind you, is God's tool to crucify the flesh, but that won't happen as long as we believe our flesh, believe that to sacrifice the things we have or wish we had, to live with unfulfilled longings, is really suffering. Suffering isn't optional, however, we can certainly reduce unnecessary suffering in the flesh by surrendering our rights. Flesh creates a distracting illusion around the choice of surrender and sacrifice, so that we believe those things, themselves, are the actual suffering we must avoid. Ironically, by falling for that, we are more trapped then ever, more miserable in our suffering, always focusing on what we don't have, never feeling satisfied or content, comparing our situations with others and coming out on the short end of the stick. Life becomes unfair, we blame God, and we feel stagnate.

Can you see how all these "rights" compete with living the death sentence everyday? Can you see how they keep flesh alive and kicking, keep you in the spiritual quagmire that you are tired of reentering?

The Surrendered life by Oswald Chambers
"To become one with Jesus Christ, a person must be willing not only to give up sin, but also to surrender his whole way of looking at things.  What our Lord wants us to present to Him is not our goodness, honesty, or our efforts to do better, but real solid sin. But we must surrender all pretense that we are anything, and give up all our claims of even being worthy of God's consideration. Along each step of this process, we will have to give up our claims to our rights to ourselves. Are we willing to surrender our grasp on all that we possess, our desires, and everything else in our lives? Are we ready to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?
We will suffer a sharp painful disillusionment before we fully surrender. When people really see themselves as the Lord sees them, it is not the terribly offensive sins of the flesh that shock them, but the awful nature of the pride of their own hearts opposing Jesus Christ."

Fellowship of Sufferers

"do you think you'll be suffering at the next place you go?", said the young man sitting at my table, as he savored and devoured real Mexican food.
Arrian Zane swore he would be the first person to visit us in Mexico, which he did, just one month after we had arrived. Sure, his question made me laugh, but, was he really making a joke? I had to agree with him, this was not suffering, and in some strange way, I felt like I was letting him down. It was kind of disappointing that life on the mission field could be so yummy. An uneasy doubt popped into my head, "maybe I wasn't even a legitimate missionary, if I wasn't suffering."

For most of the time, we can emphatically say, with all assurance, "I don't want to suffer"! Sometimes, though, a little suffering seems exciting, makes us feel qualified, as if we have chosen a more honorable way, but that is a very little, mind you. Our prayer would mostly be "give us this day, Lord, suffering within reasonable limits, suffering that suits our plans, never let us suffer without seeing a greater purpose in it all, or if possible, never let us suffer."

When we try to dictate to the Lord the terms of our suffering, we are not really learning to suffer in the Spirit. Beware of thinking that God is going to get on board with your choices and check you off the list of suffering recipients. Besides, even if we had the choice, I don't believe we would ever choose God's way to begin with. Consider this. Has anyone ever said, after the fact, that they would have chosen God's path of suffering if they had known about it beforehand? Think about it in your own life. Would you have made that choice?
Suffering in the Spirit requires that you surrender the right to choose how you will suffer, and agree to the Lord's terms of suffering, even if it means you will never know the purpose behind it. Suffering is not optional, not a "take it or leave it", nor a "pick and choose" choice. I repeat, it is not optional, still not optional, no matter how much your flesh insists that it is.

"For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake." (philippians1:29) Did you know you were getting the package deal?

C.S. Lewis wrote while struggling with his wife's death,  “We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.” In his book "Simply Jesus", Joseph Stowell says "The question is not are you willing to suffer? We have little choice about that. The real question is, are you willing to meet Jesus there - right in the midst of your pain?"

The worst part of suffering is that it hurts. When I was going through depression, what I wanted more than anything was for the pain to stop; it became my obsessive goal, in what seemed to be a never ending time of suffering. I wish I could tell you that one of the benefits of surrender is freedom from pain, but alas, I cannot. To walk in the Spirit is to meet Christ in real, actual pain. Stay with Him there, Stowell encourages us, "and as you feel His pain in yours, thank Him that He loved you enough to suffer like this for you." There is a deeper knowing, a deeper intimacy, in experiencing pain with Christ.

It doesn't make me like pain more, and when my flesh offers me ways to numb that pain, I jump at the chance. In the flesh, I have a wide array of numbing agents like depression, food, drugs, alcohol, sex, even cutting, but I won't share Christ's sufferings in anything the flesh offers. And, to my horror, in the flesh I find myself wanting those around me to feel pain too. If I have to suffer, then someone else is going down with me, preferably the one "I see" as the cause of my pain. Shockingly selfish, I know, but rings true in us all. Isn't that why "if momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy?"

But to the Philippians, Paul said that he wanted to know Christ, the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. (3:10). There is no doubt that God intends for us to suffer, but suffering is also a place, a place of fellowship with His Son, a place to die, a place of His choosing.