The Longing in Me: How Everything You Crave Leads to the Heart of God

Have you ever longed so much to be chosen that it led you into a damaging situation? Has longing for things to be the way they used to be caused you to feel as if God has forgotten you? Maybe you messed things up and you longed to make them right again, but there was no way of changing the past. Or perhaps you longed for that one thing you knew would make you happy, but when you got it you discovered you were even more empty.

In The Longing in Me: How Everything You Crave Leads to the Heart of God, Sheila Walsh delves into ten longings we experience as we navigate through this life. Though she writes primarily to women, the desires she discusses are common to everyone, and the truths apply to all.

Sheila writes not as an expert, but from a hunger to understand. Every chapter draws you in with a personal story from her own life relevant to the chapter topic. Each chapter also explores an applicable experience from King David’s life. These intertwining illustrations give clarity to her message.

Sheila doesn’t believe our longings are inherently good or evil. However, when our basic longings are not met, we question where to go from there. And when they are met, we’re even more confused because we have a greater ache. Have you been there? You get what you thought you needed, and you still crave more. She believes “it is a sacred ache, a longing for the very heart of God.”

~~~

One of our longings is to be protected. Sheila was fearless as a young child, until her father suffered a brain injury. When his personality changed, she lost the protection she had known. He sometimes became violently angry. When she was five years old, she tried to protect herself as he was about to attack her. As a result, he was locked in an asylum, escaped, and drowned himself in the river. Her family’s life was turned upside down. For years after that, Sheila believed no one would protect her, and she thought if she tried to protect herself, everyone would pay for it.

She later married a man despite warnings from all her friends. He had become her protector, she thought, and she was determined not to abandon him. The relationship did not last. Since then, through her years of walking with God, she now understands that God alone is her protector.

David had learned this truth as a shepherd boy while he was in constant communion with God in the fields. Because he knew the Lord was his only protection, he had no fear of giants. He rescued his lambs from lions and bears. Later, he had no qualms about fighting Goliath, the giant enemy of Israel no one else would face.

David wrote of God’s protection in one of his earliest psalms: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4). He knew his protection was not in weapons, bodyguards, or armies, but only in the God who was bigger than any giant he would face.

~~~

Another longing is for that one thing you think you need to be happy. Sheila tells of Beethoven dying at the age of 56. When an autopsy revealed extensive liver damage, it was presumed his death resulted from heavy alcohol consumption. However, recent chemical tests on his hair indicate he more likely died slowly from lead poisoning from mineral spas he frequented in order to find healing for his poor health.

Just as Beethoven’s longing for health may have led to his death, the things we hunger for can have devastating results. It was thirteen years from the time David was anointed as king to the time he went to Hebron to become king over Judah. But he had to wait seven and a half more years for God to fulfill his calling to be king over all Israel. Though he was content to wait on God during that time, he thought he needed a woman to make him happy.

David had taken two wives to Hebron, but he added four more while there (2 Samuel 2:2, 3:2-5). That didn’t satisfy him, though. When he saw Bathsheba, the wife of one of his most loyal soldiers, bathing on her roof, he had to have her. Besides not fulfilling his longing for what he thought would make him happy, his sin was followed by years of heartbreaking consequences, including rape and murder among his children.

~~~

One more of the longings Sheila examines is to share with others the grace and mercy we’ve received from God. Unfortunately, it is much more natural for us to dish out judgment instead. It is difficult for us to grasp how those who worked only the last hour of the day in the parable of the vineyard workers (Matthew 20:1-16) received the same wages as those who worked all day. But it is a picture of grace.

Sheila says we find such grace offensive because it isn’t fair. But “God is not fair. God is grace. He graces us with what we don’t deserve: His forgiveness and love.”

So how can we show this same grace to others? Sheila struggled with this in a marriage counselor’s office. She was resentful at dealing with her husband’s out-of-control spending that had led them to bankruptcy court. Their counselor shared a story about a man who was asked who his favorite person on earth was. He answered that it was his tailor “because every time he sees me, he takes fresh measurements.”

That simple picture of grace has changed the way she sees her husband. Paul said, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). If Jesus has removed our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12), how could she keep judging her husband by what he was a week ago?

“God doesn’t hold on to how we failed a year ago or even last night. When we’ve confessed our sin, it’s gone, and we get to begin again.” She says until we are able to allow God’s grace to wash over us, we won’t be able to share it with anyone else.

David had greatly sinned in his relationship with Bathsheba and in trying to cover it up, but he also confessed to God and experienced God’s grace wash over him. That enabled him to extend the same grace to others. In those days when a new king ascended to the throne, it was the custom to have all the previous king’s descendants killed. However, David had promised both King Saul and his son Jonathan that he would not destroy their line of descendants (1 Samuel 20:12-17; 1 Samuel 24:20-22).

After Saul and Jonathan were both dead, David determined to find out if there was anyone left in the family he could show kindness to. David’s men found Jonathan’s crippled son Mephibosheth hiding for his safety. He was taken to the palace, no doubt expecting the worst. But instead, he was given all the property that had belonged to his grandfather, and also a place at the king’s table (2 Samuel 9:1-13). David showed Mephibosheth the grace he had received from God: He welcomed him home as family.

~~~

These are just a few of the longings Sheila writes about in The Longing in Me. Her personal stories and other anecdotes are much more detailed in the book, as are the scenarios from David’s life. This is a worthwhile read if you ever feel you are looking for fulfillment in the wrong places or if your life seems to move in a circular pattern in your search for something you can never quite reach.

When we try to satisfy our longings with things of this world, it can be no more than a temporary fix because the things of this world are themselves temporary. Only our eternal God can reach into the depths of our soul and permanently satisfy us with himself.

Scripture quotations are from NIV.

Quotations other than scripture are from The Longing in Me.

Feature photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash