He Longs for You
Click below to listen to the reach:
It was 30 years ago when I began reading the divine love letter beginning to end, and I haven’t stopped. I had come to realize that even on my best days, when all seemed right with the world — when I hadn’t messed up, shall we say, in too many ways — I still knew there was a void space in me. Something was missing. We didn’t have excessive money, so by God’s grace, I wasn’t able to fill the void with “things”. We did have three beautiful children who needed their mom to do the mom things — dinner on the table, laundry in the drawers, cheering at their ballgames, floors swept, and lamps aglow. It kept my wheels on the right track even as a hunger was growing inside me. Then I read in a devotional, “Find the peaceful, secluded window in your home. Put your most comfortable chair there. A table. A lamp. A small vase with a wildflower in it. Prepare a space where you want to be, and let it invite you to sit with the One who aches to be with you.”
The One who aches to be with you…
I’d never thought of God as aching for anything. I mean, He is GOD. He can have anything, do anything, go anywhere, create anything. In my mind, I could hardly imagine God having emotions of longing. So I asked a mentor about it. And she wisely said, “Oh yes, God longs for us to want to be with Him. He aches for us.”
She opened her Bible and said, “In Matthew 23:37 it says, ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me.’ Donna, we don’t think of ourselves as capable of “killing the prophets or stoning God’s messengers” do we? But in truth, people do it all the time still today. They dismiss the truth and despise the messenger. But the part of that verse that tells us something about Jesus’s heart is that He longed to gather the people of Jerusalem together as if He were their mother and they were His chicks. He wanted to protect them. More than wanted… He longed to gather them and have them near His side.”
And somewhere in those moments I realized… I had no clue of the heart of God. That God longed for us. He longs for you, He longs for me. He loves when we sit with Him. He wants us to be near Him. He is always near us, unless we have hardened our hearts to Him, for in so doing, those people are choosing to be separated from Him.
So I began searching out — what is a“hardened heart”? (worried if I had one), and scripture began to breathe for me — it said:
Hebrews 3:13 (NIV): "But encourage one another daily... so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness."
Hebrews 3:7-8 (ESV): "Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion...'"
Proverbs 28:14 (ESV): "Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity."
Matthew 13:15 (NIV): "For this people’s heart has grown callous; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes."
Ephesians 4:18 (NIV): "They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts."
Zechariah 7:12 (NIV): "They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent."
Mark 3:5 (ESV): "And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart..."
Ezekiel 36:26 (NIV): "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."
It woke something inside me that I had not realized was sleeping. And it was the last two of these verses that was the final shake of my sleepy soul.
The realization that Jesus, who is God in human form, felt anger and was grieved at their hardness of heart… I melted. Jesus would go to the cross and die for them, longing to save their souls and be with them forever… but they were petty in their self-centeredness unable to see the Messiah who had come for them. Instead they hardened their hearts. In this verse, scripture is referring to the Pharisees who had hardened their heart against Jesus, for they wanted it to be done according to the legality of the rules they were enforcing. They did not want Jesus to heal on the sabbath, it was against the rules. Oh but Jesus was and still is more concerned with the person than He is with the law. The guidelines matter, indeed they do. But a life matters most to the One who gives life. And I was beginning to see the feelings of a Father who longs for His children. Jesus looked at the Pharisees with "anger" (Greek orgē) combined with grief or distress (sullypeō) because of their stubbornness. The leaders were following the rules, but Jesus wanted their hearts to see the person. Rules matter, they have value in guiding us. But Jesus showed us that people matter more. And since Jesus is God in flesh, I could finally see that God feels too. God has feelings. God longs for His creation to long for Him.
Imagine it with me. The great King of Kings, dreamed you up, imagined you, formed you, created you — hoping that someday you would want Him. He dreamed of life with you. He longs for you to reach for Him. He cares so very much that you choose Him, that you want more of Him than what is in this world.
Rules are meant to help us live peaceably and well beside each other. Oh but the heart of God supersedes the rules here for He is longing for us to live beside Him forever.
The enemy of God knows this. So what does satan work to do? He works to harden our hearts against God, so that we no longer see the love of God, the love that is tucked inside His guidelines which are for our good. Instead we get stuck in the mud of this world and look away from God. We should never forget, the enemy has a billion ways to drag us into the mud.
Oh but Ezekiel rocked my world when he wrote these words from God, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 36:26 Grab your Bible and soak in the very heart of God flowing through Ezekiel’s prophetic words, for in the very next chapter, 37:11, the people said, “Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.” And the Lord responds with this (v12-13), “My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back… Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live…”
And I knew, those 30+ years ago, God is a God of emotion and care, patience and mercy. He longs for us to reach for more of Him; He hopes we will reach for less of the worldly ways around us.
I began by reading Matthew through Revelations (i always love knowing how stories end…), then I soaked in how it all began in Genesis and read my way through to Malachi. I didn’t use any of the clever reading plans that can get you through reading the Bible in a year. I had no desire to rush through. I’m rushed daily by the demands of life here in this world — I have never seen any sense in rushing through the place where I can find peace. His Word. And I’ve found that the parts I don’t understand, do not deter me. For I have come to know — there is so much I do not understand in life, but that doesn’t stop me from living. Likewise in the Holy Pages. What I do not understand will possibly be understood in my future readings, but if not, the parts I do understand are wonderfully enough to bring me back for another morning in that comfortable chair beside a window with candle lit and flower in vase. It’s my hiding place, where dry bones come to life, and I feel the goodness of God flow in. I’ve slowly “walked” through all the Holy Pages 11 times now. I’ll do it for the rest of my days. It’s my home here.
Do you have a secluded space, maybe beside a window? Can you place a chair and table there? Create your own private space in this busted up confusing world, where you invite yourself to meet with the One who holds a beautiful forever in His hands and He will drip His peace into you as you sit together… just you and the One… who brings dry bones to life.
