Longing

It was the way he mentioned longing that really resonated with me.

There’s been so much talk about feeling at home with your own culture. People wanting to return to where they’re comfortable and that comfort is defined by certain hallmarks of the background. Style of music, clothes, expression, etc. So much in the way of diversity that has effectively been used to just pigeon-hole certain types to their own milieu. That’s not even being said as a bad thing necessarily, but in the way it’s limiting, it’s such a shame.

It was then that the man mentioned longing. What he said about it was how because of the work that Christ has brought about in our hearts there is a longing. A longing for home – but this home is not about shared food and national heritage. This home is the heavenly one that is present on earth and makes people of different backgrounds truly feel united in the love of Jesus that brings about peace. That is not a swallowing of cultural identity or suggesting you cannot have your preferences. It is to experience something that truly on the Spirit of the Creator could initiate.

It’s in those precious moments that there is a glorious taste of amazing love that’s divine and saw a broken body and shed blood before the victoriously resurrected new life emerged. That is tasted when we sense that belonging to each other as made one in Christ. That is hinted at as we see what unites us and makes us children of the Most High through faith in the Son by the power of His Spirit.

It is a tragedy that this taste is not something to always experience in gatherings of saints in some settings. It is a height of beauty when it is experienced.

That is why there is such a resonance when he talks about longing. It is something I long for.

(Photo by W A T A R I on Unsplash)

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

C. L. J. Dryden