inside out

The key, I suggest, to dealing honestly with our desires without losing personal authenticity or genuine concern about others is to understand two facts about our desires. First, our desires, though energizing a complex variety of sinful directions, are related not only to our fallenness but also, and more profoundly, to our humanness. In other words, it's okay to desire. Second, when we look carefully at what we deeply desire, we come to realize that what we want is simply not available, not until heaven. The more aware we become of our most passionate longings, the more lonely and sad we feel. A colleague has described the experience as feeling "out of the nest."

[Two] errors in responding to our longings - hiding them in a flurry of Christian activity and focusing on them to find satisfaction - deny the simple truth that we legitimately want what we cannot have in this world. We were designed to live in a perfect world uncorrupted by the weeds of disharmony and distance. Until we take up residence in that world, however, we will hurt. It is, therefore, not only okay to desire, but also okay to hurt.

Beneath the obvious struggles of everyday life, thirsty souls pant after satisfaction. We must recognize how the reality of unquenched thirst surfaces in our lives.

-Dr. Larry Crabb, "Inside Out"