Our souls long for God. Many in today’s world would deny that we
yearn for God’s presence, but we do. We
seek to fill our lives with so many things:
possessions, pleasures, busy-ness, and entertainments. Yet there is a longing in so many of us for
something that we lack, something more, or some kind of peace. In truth that something is God.
In his Confessions,
St. Augustine wrote, “The thought of You stirs [a person] so deeply that he
cannot be content unless he praises You, because You made us for Yourself and
our hearts find no peace until they rest in You.” We were made for God, and apart from Him we
can never be complete, we will always lack, and there will always be something
missing.
Some will scoff at that idea and
antiquarian. “God is so
seventeenth-century! We modern people
know better with our understanding of the psyche and emotional development.” Others, feeling that lack of peace, have
sought out all sorts of spiritual experiences, chasing after eastern
meditation, ecstatic wonders in nature, and other such things. Sadly, the hardening of human hearts and
darkening of human minds grows worse and worse with each passing day.
In contrast to such modern sentiments, the
Christian has tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and we want more of
Him. “As a deer pants for flowing
streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.”
While the world would tempt us to fill that desire with something else,
our hearts can never be content without the real loving presence of God.
So often when Christians who have wandered
away from the gathering of believers return, they hear the Word and participate
in the Lord’s Supper they and say, “I needed that. I need more of this!” The experience of God’s love touches them
exactly where they needed to be touched.
They receive real food to satisfy their hunger, as opposed to the
junk-food we try to exist on apart from Christ.
When we stay away from the Word and the
gathering of our fellow disciples too long we begin to feel it. The psalmist says, “Why are you cast down, O
my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?”
He knows something is missing, recognizes what it is and names it, “Hope
in God; for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God.”
No doubt, the world and those who do not
believe in Jesus will taunt us, “Where is you God?” They will say that we are fooling ourselves;
placating our consciences with religious clap-trap. In those moments it is best to look to the
Cross and remember Jesus’ suffering and how he was mocked. Look there and see your God giving Himself
for you.
Where can you find God now? He is in His Word, working in the lives of
those who read and hear it. He is in
Baptism, where we were baptized into Jesus’ death and we receive the hope of
His resurrection. He is in the Lord’s
Supper to eat and drink for the forgiveness of your sins.
More and more, I learn that my life is just
not right unless it is lived in Christ.
I need to be re-drowned in baptism, fed on Jesus’ body and blood, and
made alive by God’s Word. I am learning
to be dependent; longing more and more for God’s presence and salvation instead
of trusting in my own strength and knowledge.
It’s not always easy, but God has made us to long for Him, and never be
whole without Him.
Father, help me hope in You and see my salvation in the Cross of
Jesus. Amen.
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