CassieAre you longing for more? Hungering for purpose? Dissatisfied with a life without meaning?
Believe it or not, we are actually called to be in anguish for this world. If you are longing… feeling discontented and like there has to be MORE… feeling anguished for the state of the world… even feeling lost and searching… take heart.
“They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”
— Hebrews 11:14-16
We are strangers on this earth as children of God. This is not our home. Our home is when we are at the feet of Jesus, where He reigns in Heaven: where sin is non-existent, suffering is non-existent, mental illness is non-existent, and everything is clear because HE is all we see…. All we care to see… All we care to know, to touch, to learn from, to work for, to love.
If this is what is True about Heaven… it’s what’s True about Earth. Jesus Christ is our heart’s One Desire. He is our life’s purpose. He is the REASON we have life in the first place – both because He created life itself and the earth itself, and because He saved us from our sins by dying the brutal death on the cross that we deserve. When we come to Christ, our sinful nature is crucified with Him on the cross – and He sets us free from it.
We are called to the Heavenly life HERE – Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.” As disciples of Jesus, we pray and we hope for His moral will to be done here on this earth – but we know that this world is full of sinful, broken people like you and I, as well as a devil who “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
So we anguish. We cry out to God. We long for His fullness. We long for more, and we know that Earth should be more of Him – resemble Him more, make Him all the room, exalt Him with everything we are.
If you’re hungry and longing and find yourself constantly thinking, There must be more to this life, go to the foot of the cross where Jesus bled and died for you. Talk to Him and go to His Word. Confess and repent of your sins. And receive the Holy Spirit – receive all that He has to teach you, challenge you in, convict you of, change and transform in you.
And don’t think that the longing and hungering will stop. It will absolutely be filled with the Spirit of Christ to the fullness of Joy – but, as you follow Jesus, anguish – longing for ALL PEOPLE to know Jesus, The bread of life (John 6:35) will inevitably be part of the journey, which is simply part of our mission: “Go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:18). That is our purpose. Spread the Gospel, and point people to Jesus until the time comes for you to go Home to be with Him forever.
I pray that this Word is one that you receive today, no matter where you find yourself in longing and in anguish. When you believe in and follow with your life the Healer Jesus, He promises that you will never hunger nor thirst (John 6:35). May the Holy Spirit Himself guide you into all Truth.
