2024-11-17 A Meditation on Heart’s Longings

“5 So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: 2 shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. 5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. 10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 11 To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Peter 5:1-11 ESV)

To get at the real longings of the heart, we are coached by the Divine no longer to accept a mediocrity or treadmill going nowhere or blase state of compromise. What’s this? God mourns over every day in which we are lethargic or borderline. Borderline self-loathing or borderline lazy and assured; God mourns because there is scarcely time for such tom-foolery. God mourns because our “I got this”, “I wouldn’t dream of asking for anything, I’m good”, is a dance with dying and frustrations, deep misbegotten life trends forgotten or closeted away until some never-arriving Future Blessed Peace. What happened to the decade? What happened to the day? What happened to the week?

That Future Blessed Peace is also Alert and Alive, it licenses to Act and it cajoles to Energize the Faithful with a kind word or deed done in season. It is a Tomorrow dwelling place that is ours Today, because let’s get down to business! The true longings of the heart are born in an utter brokenness that admits no healing no matter how sincere the doctor’s script or the prayer-warrior’s injunction. Yet also when we hear that Good Intention levied our way, it is a shocking what-if. It is a chance to be Reborn as New Creations. It is something that Awakens and makes our Sundays Alert, to dare to bask in the revelation of a Christ, our Christ, everybody’s Getting Along.

Only no accommodation for futile dreamy false realities: all persons “getting along”? Rather Concede, O Warrior who prays, Concede that to get along with certain “others” is well nigh Impossible, and ask the Lord of Mercy—the same Lord who knows their nursing womb and early state of their own brand of “Grace”—to intervene! Ask God for the Chance to see with eyes Benevolent and Dreamy indeed! No lying claims that all and sundry are merrily riding the roller coaster of life suddenly all together, but rather a Personal Attainment, a Height, wherein we can dream a what-if.

Because our own compromised futility, the literary person’s “Oh, here I am once again”: at the subway, walking the trail, at the doctors, at the dentists, at the family gathering, at the job… the existential “Here I am” meets a New Imperative, a Calling and Cause that no longer lazes about (to use a critical term), rather, that expends the seconds and minutes of the day in Excited Prayer. We can—Today, not tomorrow—Dare to Rise Up, like our Resurrected Savior. We can Dare to Challenge, like our boisterous Believing Father and Mother in Heaven. We can Dare to Heal, because the hospital bed is ours to claim for however many seasons are needed: no shame, no weakness on display, no service avoided: all of us are gladsome and plucky and quite Missional Today, such that we have nothing but Benevolence for our stricken comrades in arms. Goodness, let one such as this sit out the season, sit out the war and its various fronts, sit out because… because we are not of a skeptical bent! We are choosing to Believe—to believe such as these are hemmed up for real, no self-imposed psychological complex, hypochondria, but exhibiting a sincere Need shared across Humanity—we are choosing to Believe that the air is rushing in, the turnstyles windswept, the Spirit in the Air is vibrant and Hard at Work.

This day to agree to try, just to try, to meet for a moment with squinting eyes suddenly Alert and Composed: here, is a brother or sister in Christ; and what of it? What, except that their life experience has made imitators and carriers of myriad spirits Discovered out of them, and we… we acknowledge, if we are Jews, how much more they! Rather, if we are Christ’s, then how much more they! Fruits spilling forth because it was no time to delay around Getting On With It. Our deepest needs finally, as though meeting the love of our lives, beginning to receive some glints of sunlight. All this because we labor in true Joy, for the King of kings, for the One in whose courts we are never despondent or resentful or suspicious, but count it a Privilege thus to serve.