What to do with Longing
Today I want to talk about something that many of us feel very deeply. And that is longing. Longing or yearning is a deep desire for something that you don’t currently have. This could be a deep desire for anything, for a spouse or a partner, for children and a family, for reconciliation with someone in our life, or perhaps a deep longing to be accepted as you are.
The Bible talks a lot about longing, especially in the Psalms. Psalm 119:82 says “My eyes long for your promise; I ask, ‘When will you comfort me?’”
And Psalm 38:8-9 says, “I groan in anguish of heart. All my longings lie open before you, Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you.”
The Psalms give us language to cry out to God in the midst of longing. We don’t have to wait till we have ourselves all sorted out before we cry to God. We can cry to God for the things we long for. I love the Psalms for giving us this language. It is natural and deeply human to long for things. It is good to long for things that are good for us and to cry out to God for them.
There is no easy solution to longing, but something we can do with our longing is to look at it, we can give it our attention and attentiveness. We can ask ourselves, “What is this longing really for?” And as we look at our longing we may find that we have deeper needs that are going unmet. I would encourage you to ask yourself, “what is the need that would be met if I had the thing my heart most longs for?”
Our longings often point us in the right direction, they help us see the needs that might be chronically unmet in our lives. And unlike longing, which is often contingent on things we cannot control, when we know our needs and can name them we can work towards making sure those needs are met, even in the midst of longing.
I want to share a resource with you that has been really helpful to me. It is a prayer tool called the Empathy Heart Labyrinth. To use it, you start with the outer orange ring. This ring has a list of feelings. If you are in a period of longing, spend some time identifying what feelings are attached to that. Are you upset or disappointed? Are you angry, anguished, or afraid? Notice and name how you are feeling right now.
Once you’ve identified these emotions, move to the inner blue circle. This circle has a list of needs, things like safety, trust, to know that I matter, meaning, partnership, companionship, and love. Pray through this list and identify the top five needs that resonate with you in this season of longing. Write them down on a piece of paper and pray with God over these needs. One by one, hold these precious needs to your heart and invite them into your life. Imagine what it would feel like if each of these needs was met completely and perfectly. After you’ve finished praying, make a simple request of yourself. “What would I be willing to do to meet these needs using the resources I have available to me right now?”
There are often lots of different ways to get our different needs met. God, our communities, our families, our work, our pets, our hobbies, and our habits can all contribute to meeting our deepest heart needs. We may not be able to control the circumstances that would fulfill our longings, but we can seek to find creative ways to meet the needs that lie beneath our longings. God and our community are great partners in this task.
I have attached a link to this labyrinth below, and I encourage you to look at it and spend some time praying with it. I would love to hear about your experience praying this way, and I can share more about my experience as well. God desires that you bring your longings to him, and God desires that the deepest needs of your heart are met with abundance.