Longing

My Advent word for today is Longing. We are created for relationship with God and with any break in this relationship creates a deep longing inside us. The deep inner indescrible longing is like homesickness where you know there is another place you rather be. C.S.Lewis has described this longing well in his Surprised by Joy where he described his conversion. I remember I first felt this deep aching longing when I was twelve years old. I was too young to understand this and lived with this inner longings for many years. I read and devoured sacred texts from many religious traditions to find the the answer to this longing.

Three statements from Augustine, one of our most helpful theologian, help me to understand this longing.

"Let us come home at last to you, O Lord, so that we shall not be lost."

"I sought for you abroad, but you were within me though I was far from you. Then you touched me, and I longed for your peace, and now all my hope is only in your great mercy."

"I call upon you, O God, my mercy, you who created me, and did not forget me when I forgot you."

Advent is the season of waiting for the two comings of Christ. The first is when he came as a helpless baby boy to redeem the world and has been fulfilled, and the second is when he comes in glory to claim it. Christ's comings is both the answer to my longing and its fulfilment.

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