{"id":306,"date":"2012-10-23T08:22:26","date_gmt":"2012-10-23T08:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meditations.kafkasworld.com\/dir\/?p=306"},"modified":"2023-10-04T22:19:43","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T22:19:43","slug":"the-deepest-longing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2012\/10\/23\/the-deepest-longing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Deepest Longing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
I sometimes gaze at the horizon and feel a very clear longing. What exactly I long for I know not what, but it is there and it is deep within me, perhaps in a place as deep within me as I could ever know in this life. Just today I drove home from work in a contemplative mood on a crystalline spring late afternoon. The trees, clouds, sky and earth seemed woven together in a sort of sublime unity within their distinctiveness and I sensed I was losing myself in them while at the same time seeing and sensing something far beyond them.<\/p>\n

It is only in the past year or so that I have finally been able to apprehend that such moments, moments that I have experienced in some sense since childhood are profoundly connected with God. All those years ago I was sensing something beyond the realm of my earthly \u201creality\u201d, something genuinely transcendent, but as one brought up with no religion I could not connect it to a God I had not yet met but soon would, the God of the Bible. Now, with the help of a Holy Spirit who is more profoundly and beautifully mysterious to me than ever, I am coming to realize that this unspeakable thing I have longed for through nature goes far beyond nature. In an aching taste of ultimate reality it goes all the way to nature\u2019s Creator.<\/p>\n

I now sense that somehow I have been uniquely made to deeply and desperately desire some aspect of the divine that no one else can. I do not say this to set myself apart from others in some superior way. I believe we each have within us a longing to know God someday in a way that no other person can. Perhaps in the new Heaven and the new Earth we will share this unspeakable thing with each other as well as with God, I do not know. I just know that what I experienced today on my drive through the verdant hills of Northwest New Jersey is something that, at its core, is almost completely incommunicable to another soul. It is, in the most profound sense, between me and my God. It is, I believe, deep calling deep.<\/p>\n

My life has often been a troubled one. I\u2019ve known long periods of spiritual darkness and struggle, but at moments like today\u2019s fleeting encounter with what I was perhaps made for, those times do not mean much to me. I am transported, if only partially, to a place, to a state of being that makes me forget everything but its experience.<\/p>\n

You may call me a mystic if you like. You may ask what chapter and verse describes what I am talking about. It doesn\u2019t really matter to me. If I am left longing for the God that has blessed me beyond words then I am just that, blessed. I love Him in all this mystery. I love Him because of this mystery, His mystery, and I can only long for the day when I will fully know Him as I am fully known, and that which I now long for I will possess, in Him\u2026.forever.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I sometimes gaze at the horizon and feel a very clear longing. What exactly I long for I know not what, but it is there and it is deep within me, perhaps in a place as deep within me as I could ever know in this life. Just today I drove home from work in… <\/p>\n

Read more The Deepest Longing<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-christian","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6GkOA-4W","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":551,"url":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2014\/08\/07\/christianity-and-the-mystical\/","url_meta":{"origin":306,"position":0},"title":"Christianity and the Mystical","date":"August 7, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright by Shea Oakley All rights reserved The world we dwell in is sublime. It is beautiful. 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