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?"