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Devotionals
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Longings
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Joni and Friends Daily Devotional
Longings
"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 11:16
Sometimes I get so homesick for heaven that the yearning swells like an ocean wave and I feel as though I'm being swept away, right then and there, to a better country, a heavenly one. Spiritual growth includes an awakening of these deep longings for heaven. This awakening leads to the true contentment of asking less of this life because more is coming in the next. Such longings also heighten our loneliness here on earth.
"Godly people joyfully delight in good things and they nobly endure hard things," says my friend Larry Crabb. "They know that their existence is meaningful and that they are destined for unlimited pleasure at the deepest level. Because they keenly feel that nothing now quite meets the standards of their longing souls, the quiet but throbbing ache within them drives them not to complaint but to anticipation."
The difference between godly and ungodly people is not that one group never hurts and the other group does. The difference lies in what people do with their hurt. Christians who long for a better country, a heavenly one, are convinced that one day something so glorious will happen in the world's finale that it will suffice for all of their hurts.
Like tides on a crescent sea-beach
When the moon is new and thin,
Into our hearts high yearnings
Come welling and surging in--
Come from the mystic ocean,
Whose rim no root has trod--
Some of us call it Longing,
And others call it God.*
-- William Herbert Carruth
Blessed Lord, my soul longs for You! Wrap my life in Your divine love and keep me ever desiring You. Keep my heart from wandering away and may I never lose sight of my heavenly home.
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Davidwayne Lackey 06/23/2014 21:52 |
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