So here we are in June and it is almost summer. A season that we spend all winter longing for. School children long for the summer holidays. Teachers long for their break. Counselors long for the anticipated arrival of eager and excited campers. Carnivores long for the opportunity to grill their dinners. So many longings are brought to resolution with the arrival of summer.
As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God.
—Psalm 42:1, NLT
Some longings aren’t so inevitably resolved.I know of someone who longs for a spouse. Another longs to conceive a child. A dear friend longs for gainful employment. Another friend longs for a healthy relationship with a family member.
Longings of all kinds, from the mundane to the desperate, cross the landscape of our experience on a regular basis. We tend to think of longing as based in sadness, because we so easily notice our longing for the things we lack. But there’s more to longing than sadness; longing is, in fact, a central aspect of the experience of living.
In reading Psalm 42 I was struck by this word in the first verse: long. A deer jumps through the brush, prances through the forest, finally landing upon a beautiful mountain stream–fresh and clear and tasty. It searches for it. It needs it. It longs for it. It’s a rich emotion. A healthy desire. Life-giving.
Dear reader, are you the same with our God?
Do you seek after Him as you would a big bowl of ice cream? Or a chilled glass of lemonade on a hot summer’s day?
I sit here thinking of friends who longed to see the Cubs win the World Series. I know of a good number of folks longing to see their team win the Stanley Cup! I hope you and I can likewise crave for a rich relationship with God . . . like a deer craving a stream that will surely satisfy.
By Don Pape, NavPress publisher.
Looking for great summer reading? Here are two great titles of christian adventure:
- Crossing the Waters – CT Book of the Year winner!
- Words from the Hill