I make commissions for purchases made through links in this post. For more information please see our disclosures page.
What Do You Yearn For?
Please share!
After 5 rounds and nearly 3 years of blogging through the alphabet, I am a little sad to announce that this will be the final installment of ABC Blogging here at Ben and Me.
I have loved using letters of the alphabet as writing prompts, but as my life has taken many new directions over the past two years, it has become increasingly difficult to keep up with the weekly responsibility of posting on time. I know I have frustrated many of you with my lack of diligence in this area. Even this post I’m writing today is posting late (and I had to move Y to this week with Z).
When thinking about how to wrap this up, I was a bit overwhelmed. I know it seems silly, but writing these series of posts for 5 rounds (that’s more than 120 posts) means that my blog has often been guided by what I am inspired to write based on letters of the alphabet. I don’t want to leave the last entry lacking, if you know what I mean.
The two words that have consistently come to mind as I’ve contemplated Y and Z are YEARN and ZEALOT. I honestly couldn’t comprehend how these words would come together into one cohesive post, but I have not been able to shake the impression of them on my heart.
So I began studying each word to see what would happen.
Yearn: to long; to feel an earnest desire; literally, to have a desire or inclination stretching towards an object or end.
Zealot: one who engages warmly in any cause, and pursues his object with earnestness and ardor.
As soon as I read those definitions, it was clear how they connect.
My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. (Psalm 84:2)
Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. (Romans 12:11)
What do you yearn for? This was the question I asked myself this week. Less stress? More sleep? Obedience from my challenging child? Those were honestly the quick answers that came to mind. Those are certainly the fleshly desires I often feel. And while it is not sinful to wish for these things, they should not be the greatest yearnings of my heart and soul.
What does my soul long for? That’s the better question.
As life gets harder and the world gets crazier, my soul yearns for heaven. My soul yearns for more and more of Jesus.
God grants us the opportunity to be be zealots for Him every day as we encounter those in need of Christ and his salvation. He tells us the greatest commandments are to love Him and love our neighbor. And yet we zealously pursue the things of this world, pleasing the yearnings of our flesh rather than living in obedience to him.
And while I have your attention, please remember that sometimes your “neighbor” lives right under your very own roof.
When we begin to yearn for God and to fill our hearts up so full of Jesus that everything we think and say and do is out of genuine love and obedience to Him, that’s when our yearning and our zeal collide in ways that can change the course of a life. Our own life and the lives of those we encounter.