“You know what I long for, Lord, You hear my every sigh.” Psalm 38:9 NLT
The Psalms are just drenched — dripping — with longing. Longing for peace and prosperity. Longing for health and healing.
Longing for deliverance, for victory, for salvation, justification, vindication, reconciliation.
Longing for truth — honesty and integrity. Longing for answers — to fervent prayers and fathomless mysteries.
Longing for hope, for joy and laughter. Longing for the way things used to be — or the dream of what they could or should be. Longing for home, both the one we know here and the home that awaits us in eternity.
Longing for God’s glory. Longing for the day of His appearing. Longing for His wisdom, His guidance, His comfort, His presence.
Like the Psalmist, we live in the “Land of Longing” — and we can feel lost, when our longings are all we see. When they seem to go unfulfilled. When we lose sight of the deeper reality.
Our longings are a gift, given to us by God. And — if we let them — they can serve a powerful, even beautiful purpose.
For one thing, they remind us of the common bond we share… To long, to yearn, is to be human. It’s a part of our condition. And a constant reminder that we were meant for more:
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” (C. S. Lewis)
Our longings can draw us to God… and to a richer, deeper experience of Him. He invites us to pour out our hearts to Him and we learn from experience that He is our refuge, our shelter, a “strong tower.”
In time, we begin to see just how many of our longings He does fulfill — how many prayers He answers. We begin to trust Him with the “nos” and the “not-yets,” too.
Because we’re learning that it’s “in Him we shall soon find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing.” (A.W. Tozer)
In Him. What we long for most is Him. To which He says,
“What a coincidence!”
Because, as it turns out we aren’t the only ones longing…
He’s been longing for us, too.
Virtual VBS for GrownUp Girls Assignment
Today is the second week of our free online summer Bible study, Virtual VBS for GrownUp Girls® ~ Summer in the Psalms. If you’re participating, here are your instructions for this week…
Choose a reading plan:
1) Soaking in the Psalms ~ Savor 4 Psalms a week. You can read all the passages at once, read a few verses a day, or read them through several times and really meditate on the themes. This week’s Psalms are Psalm 27, 40, 42, and 45.
2) Surfing through the Psalms ~ Read through the entire book of Psalms during our six-week study. To do this, you need to read 25 Psalms a week, roughly 3-4 a day. So this week, read Psalms 26-50 (which includes the “Soaking” Psalms — see above). You could read a couple each morning and each evening, or 5 a day, Monday through Friday – whatever works for your schedule.
Remember, this is “active reading” – asking questions as you read, underlining key words and phrases, making note of things that come to mind. Journal about verses that speak to you. For more tips on how to do this, see Five Simple Ways to Focus on the Words You Read.
Memory Verse:
This week’s verse is Psalm 27:8 NLT ~ It’s in the graphic above and on our VBS Pinterest board.
If you’re just joining us – You can catch up by reading past posts on our Virtual VBS for GrownUp Girls® Archive page or by hitting the “back” button at the bottom of this post and scrolling through. Or jump in where we are now!
