The Heart’s True Desire
“…[T]here is nothing on earth that I desire other than you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
Psalm 73:25b-26
There is a story I heard long ago, but I do not have a definitive attribution of its source. It goes something like this:
A novice sought out an old wise monk and asked, “I wish to know God.” The elder man silently led the younger out to a river and knelt at its bank. The younger man followed suit and patiently waited for a word of wisdom. The older man turned and grasped the man by the back of his neck and pushed the young man’s head under water. Eventually, as his lungs began to be depleted, the young man began to struggle, ultimately freeing himself from the strong grasp of the monk and falling back onto the river’s bank, gasping for breath. When he had recovered, he looked wildly at the old man, asking him why he had almost killed him. The wise old monk replied, “To know God, you must desire God as much as you desired that one breath.”
The season of Advent helps us mark the time leading to the Feast of the Incarnation, Christmas. Yet, like all things sacramental and divine, Advent has multiple meanings, and multiple purposes in supporting our faith journey. It is a time of preparation, yes, expectancy and waiting, but also in Advent, we tap into our deep longing for God. Advent speaks to us of this longing, this desire that has been woven into the human heart and throughout our Scriptures. It is a longing we have felt at the core of our being since we were cast out of Eden and separated from God.
Most of us are rarely aware of this yearning for God, instead, we fill our lives with work, relationships, or keep busy, all of which we use to draw upon for meaning or purpose in our lives. Yet, all this does is continue to splinter our souls, moving us further and further from the “oneness” with God we once had.
Our spiritual forebearers longed for the coming of the Messiah, a warrior king who would kick out the despised Romans and bring King David’s heir to rule once again. Instead, their Messiah was called Emmanuel, meaning “God with us,” who ushered in a kingdom far different than what they expected. Through the Incarnation, God emptied himself (Philippians 2:7) of all that made God God and came to live among us as one of us, a self-offering for all.
Advent reminds us that, as we recollect the waiting for the coming of Emmanuel, our desire should be for God, rather than the “shiny lights and baubles” this world offers to us.
We have a God-shaped hole in our hearts that we fill with many substitutes for the real thing. We should desire God as much as we need our next breath.
