Dear Old Friend,
I read this verse yesterday and I felt its truth resonate
all the way to my core: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I
desire besides you” Psalm 73:25. When I
was young, that verse would not have spoken to me in the same way. I would have thought of it as a verse for old
people. I can remember, as a child, hearing the older members of our
congregation speak with such longing about Jesus’ second coming, when he would
return and take us all to heaven; and, I thought, ‘of course you want him to
come back soon, because you have already gotten to do everything you wanted to
do, like getting married and having children.’ I was in no hurry to go to
heaven. There were things I wanted to do first!
I believe every young person has felt that way. We spend our childhoods wishing we were
adults and our adulthoods wishing we were kids again. Why is that?
As children, we believed that this world had so much to offer. We thought that finding our true love and having a family would
bring us the fulfillment we craved; or, that when the answer to the oft asked
question of ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ finally became a
reality, we would be content, and have the financial freedom to pursue our
dreams.
However, as adults, we found that love relationships are
difficult and the raising of children takes a much greater toll than we ever
dreamed possible. And, even those who did manage to find financial freedom in
their careers discovered that money did not give them the satisfaction they
expected. The rest of us eventually gave up on finding that out for ourselves.
The Protestant Reformers in the sixteenth century referred
to the things which people desired more than God, as idols. One reformer said the human heart is an idol
making factory. It is our nature to look
for happiness and fulfillment everywhere but God. As a matter of fact, it is our nature to
suspect that God actually wants to keep us from being happy. That was what Satan told Eve in the
Garden. She believed him, and the rest
of us followed suit.
God isn’t surprised that we are like that. It was the reason he sent his son to live a
life of single devotion to Him, and to apply that devotion to our record; and
then to pay the price for our running after everything but God. He did that so he
could wait patiently for us, with no condemnation, as life on this earth
smashed our idols, one by one. He waits
for us as we are treated unfairly and are misunderstood, and as we do the same
to others. He waits as we lose our loved ones, lose our health, lose our
beauty, lose our energy, lose our patience and lose our dreams. He waits as
even our achievements leave us strangely empty.
He waits until, by the wooing of his Spirit, we finally see that the
promises of earth were merely illusions, and that every truly good thing we’ve
had on this planet was not in spite of him, but because of him. And when that Psalm becomes our own and we
realize that earth has nothing we desire besides him, he comforts us in the
midst of our loss and disillusionment, assures us of his unfailing love and
kindness toward us, and promises to give us hope and an eternal future beyond
our wildest dreams.
I needed to be reminded of that this week. Maybe you did, too.
Love Always,
Bonnie
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