What do I really want?

Psalm 72; Psalm 119:73-96; Jeremiah 3:6-18; Romans 1:28-2:11; John 5:1-18

Today's devotional from Nouwen was difficult for me. I didn't think it made sense (seems to be a recurring theme....) This was a particularly tough part:

Your whole life you have been running about, seeking the love you desire. Now it is time to end that search. Trust that God will give you that all-fulfilling love and will give it in a human way.

Really?

Huh.

It isn't the fact that God is fulfilling that bothered me (I believe that). It isn't the fact that we have been running about seeking "love in all the wrong places." (That is just manifestly true.) It isn't even the "human way" part (after all, it is an INCARNATE God I believe in.) But put them all together, and it seems, at first blush, to be wrong.

I can probably name a dozen people for whom that Nouwen position seems impossible. What about the older single person who doesn't feel called to singleness? What about a parent who has lost a child? Or the person who longs in vain FOR a child? Or the person who has been left behind in a divorce that they didn't seek?

Nouwen DOES put a slight caveat in when he says, "Before you die, God will offer you the deepest satisfaction you can desire." So, I suppose that the people I listed above can always cling to the hope that God will redeem the pain they are experiencing at some point toward the end of their life. But that seems to be a poor result when they are looking for "deepest satisfaction."

I think the key to this conundrum (well, it is a conundrum for me, maybe y'all are more spiritually mature than I and don't struggle at all....to that I say, "Harumph!" Anyway, back to the devo....) is the "Trust" part.

IF we trust Him, He will offer us the "deepest satisfaction." Trust requires re-imagining life, and asking God to give us the desire that He wants for us. And His desire for us might not be what we think it is. We have to trust that when we enter into a relationship with God, He will work in our lives to shape us into the person that He wants us to be, if we let Him do it, and that THAT shaping and relationship will result in us receiving the deepest satisfaction.

Of course, we don't have to take what He offers. We can struggle along trying to find fulfillment on our own, in the ways that WE think should work.

Questions for thought:

Are there disappointments in your life where you think God has failed? How can you re-imagine those?

How do we stay "real" about life and what is disappointing, yet still trust in God?

How has God "with skin on" shown Himself in your life?