Living with Longing - Part 2

A recent conversation I (Rich) had with a missionary in Cambodia we found ourselves discussing the relationship between our longing to enjoy God in heaven and our desire to experience God here and now. An awakened Christian with a sensitive spirit longs for Christ and heaven. But she/he also is very much attuned to this present world's suffering, brokenness, and severe limits. The incompleteness we experience is not only outside of us, but also within us. We live in a world that groans for something more. Our longing for more in the here and now is very real.But our desire for more can derail us if we are not careful. We can become dissatisfied with where we are and who we are. We can become distracted from our life wishing that we were someone else or were in some other place. Sometimes our experience of displacement is geographical, but often it is relational and spiritual. When this happens we are adrift from ourselves and consequently even adrift from our awareness God's presence with us here and now.So we long for something more in this life and yet, paradoxically, the way to actually experience this "something more" is by living in the present. We are invited to live attentively to here and now. If we are aware and mature we know we cannot escape this world's actualities no matter how much we long for heaven. “God with us” is Jesus’ final promise to his disciples. He is with us, with you and me not in some other place, not in some distant future but here . . . right now.Our longing, instead of distracting us, must ground us in our present circumstances and present relational experience. Our longing, while reaching up, also must reach into our present life. We do far better when we live from the perspective that "he is before all things and in him all things hold together.” He is here and now with us in this day.How are you longing for heaven and more in this life while staying present to the fallenness of life both in the world and your soul?