Have you ever been around a small child who is hungry and dinner isn’t ready yet? Well, it’s not the most enjoyable experience. Unless you have a snack handy, it almost always results in crying, sometimes in destruction, and hopefully, for the parents’ sake, today’s hunger doesn’t result in a full blown meltdown. Fortunately for me, I am an uncle and have the luxury of handing the crying baby back to the parents. While most of us grow out of throwing tantrums when we don’t get what we want, it is true that often our happiness is dictated by how well our desires are satisfied.
“And all we wanted was absolutely everything like foolish, hungry young lions” –Brian Fallon
And while, there are many desires of the human heart for purpose, friendship, security, freedom; the ultimate desire of the human heart is to be loved. So, is it true then that our happiness is dictated by how well we are loved? It is easy to convince ourselves that we are happy when we distract ourselves with television or social media or workouts or food, but when the distraction is done, the hole in our heart is revealed. Because it is true that our desires cannot be filled by such simple pleasures. As Brian Fallon says, “And all we wanted was absolutely everything like foolish, hungry young lions.” How could scrolling through an Instagram feed ever satisfy the desire of the human heart?
In these moments of incredible desire, where we recognize our longing most profoundly, I believe these are the times where God invites us to turn to Him to satisfy our desires. We are invited at these times to recognize who we truly are: the Beloved. He has been waiting, He has been longing, He has desired this moment when you would truly recognize your need for love. He wants to show up, He wants to break in, He wants to convict you once and for all that He loves you. He wants to show you that only in Him can our desires truly be fulfilled.
But unfortunately, it is not easy to allow ourselves to be loved. We have walked through life and our attempts to be loved have been rejected over and over again. Whether that rejection happened on the playground in 3rd grade when you were left out of a game at recess or the rejection happened last week when that relationship you had been hoping for just didn’t work out.
Jesus has shown in His victory on the Cross that He was willing to enter into your rejection, that He was willing to feel your hurt. He was even willing to be rejected over and over when you chose Instagram, when you chose to hit the snooze button after you had committed to daily prayer in the morning. He calls you His Beloved, He has claimed you for Himself. Even when you have walked away from Him, he has remained close by waiting for you to turn back.
So, friends, I hope that, as we all journey through this life, we can see in ourselves that we “want a lot, maybe we want it all.” And in recognizing that desire, may we return to Him who is the perfect fulfillment of our desires. That when we allow Him to transform us into who we are made to be, the Beloved, that we will find true happiness, joy, and peace in this life and into eternity.