Longing

Longing

It is right for me to feel this way about you, since I have you in my heart, for whether I am in chains, or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me, God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Jesus Christ.

Longing for something is much more than just wanting something.  Longing is primal, a craving, a hungering.  Longing is not being able to live without whatever the object of my longing is.  

In a the documentary, Nothing Left Unsaid, a nostalgic Gloria Vanderbilt shares with her son (CNN’s Anderson Cooper) that for all of her ninety-five years, she has achingly longed for a home. She was raised by nannies away from her divorced mother who resided in Paris.  After a few years of living in a mansion on the east coast, she was sent to live with her aunt.  Then back to the nanny. Then back to her mother. Then back to the nanny. Her life was a never-ending transition.  Vanderbilt longed for a permanent refuge, a place where she could share childhood memories, a building that she could point to in curled photographs and say, “This was my home.”  Sadly she never had a home—only cold, sterile hotel rooms and temporary residences. It’s this kind of longing that Paul is describing when he says, “I long for all of you with the affection of Jesus Christ.”

Recently my wife vacationed with my daughter in the Florida Keys for nearly a week.  The first two days alone weren’t too bad. I liked being able to leave my socks (okay, this is nothing new) on the floor and watching stupid movies. But by the third day I was longing for her to be home—not because I had had lasagna for three consecutive dinners, but because I missed her presence.  This is the kind of longing that Paul speaks of when he tells his Christian brothers and sisters that he “longs of [them} with the affection of Jesus Christ.” A more accurate word for affection is compassion. Paul has the same compassion for the brethren that Jesus has for us. Our compassionate Jesus, the crucified Jesus, longs to be with me; He longs to play with me; He longs to dance with me; He longs to work with me.  How many times have I shrugged my shoulders and turned away from His longing to satisfy some meaningless urgency.

This kind of longing is why Paul can say, “For me, to live is Christ, to die is to gain.”

Paul longs to be with the compassionate Christ, he longs to see His face; he longs to be in His presence.

As Brother Lawrence instructs, “Let us occupy ourselves entirely in knowing God. The more we know Him, the more we will desire to know Him. As love increases with knowledge, the more we know God, the more we will truly love Him. We will learn to love Him equally in times of distress or in times of great joy.”