Silent Times: Chapter 9 - The Blessedness of Longing
By J.R. Miller
At first thought, a condition of longing would seem to be undesirable, and far from blessedness. Longing suggests unhappiness, discontent, the absence of that peace which seems to us to represent the loftiest state of blessedness, and the highest ideal of the life of faith. To have all our longings satisfied, we are apt to regard as the most desirable human condition. Yet, when we think more deeply of it--we know that there is a blessedness in longing.
We remember that one of our Lord's beatitudes was for those who long. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled." Longing is, then, a healthful state; one that has an upward look--and has the promise of spiritual enriching. Satisfaction with one's attainments or achievements in any line--but especially in spiritual life and in personal holiness--is an unhealthy condition--and may be a mark of incipient spiritual decay.
In all of life, this law applies. In the physical realm, hunger is a mark of health--and the lack of appetite proclaims disease. So the mind grows through longing. The doors of knowledge are opened to the student's eye, giving a glimpse of the boundless fields that stretch in all directions, and producing a craving, a hunger to know, which leads him to seek with eagerness for the rich treasures of wisdom. So long as this mind-hunger continues, the quest for knowledge will continue, and ever new stores will be discovered. But, whenever the hunger ceases, mental growth is at an end, and the mind has gained and passed its best achievements.
In spiritual life the same is true. There is no mood so hopeful as longing. The highest state is one of hunger and thirst--intense desire for more life, more holiness, more power, closer communion with God, more of the divine likeness in the soul. The gospel promises rest to those who come to Christ. Peace was one of the benedictions the Savior left for his people. Contentment is one of the graces and duties enjoined upon the Christian--but spiritual hunger is not incompatible with either peace or contentment. It is not unrest; it is not anxiety or worry; it is not murmuring discontent. It is deep longing for more and ever more of all blessings--calmer rest, sweeter peace, more perfect contentment, with richer heart-fullness of Christ, and more and more of all the graces of the Spirit.
This longing is depicted in the Psalms, as an intense thirst for God; not the bitter cry of an unforgiven soul for mercy--but the deep, passionate yearning of a loving spirit for closer, fuller, richer, more satisfying communion with God himself. We find it in the life of the greatest of the apostles, who, wherever we see him, on whatever radiant height, is still pressing on, with unsatisfied longing and quenchless ardor--toward loftier summits and more radiant peaks, crying ever for more intimate knowledge of Christ, and more and more of the fullness of God. The ideal Christian life is one of insatiable thirst, never pausing in any arbor of spiritual contentment--but ever wooed on by visions of new joys and attainments.
