We long for more!

To be more than we are...

As I enjoyed spiritual conversation with some believers recently, we spoke about how we all long to be something else and something more than what we are. I could tell the ideas I put forward provoked a response, and one of those types of provocations that needs space to breathe. As I parted company with those believers after that time of fellowship, I didn't part ways with the idea that was swirling around in my mind and spirit. We very much do long to be something else and something more!

I opened the Bible to 1 Peter 1 and began to read: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls." (1 Peter 1:3-9 ESV)

We long for a more actual realization of the self we see through faith's eye. We in Christ know we have been "...born again..." and that is the burgeoning of new life and truer life. We also know that the "...living hope..." that Jesus is coming back and will grant deliverance from the temporal constraints that currently hold and limit us makes our hearts soar to the grand possibilities of heaven. We see glimpses of the good people can be and do. We know there is (or can be) more to us than currently meets the eye. More so, there is much "...ready to be revealed..." MORE! Far MORE!

Secondly, we also see the possibility of a better world, both because salt and light in the NOW increases goodness in the NOW, AND because heaven is a coming. Yes, and absolutely, we who believe surely do long for something else and to be something more.

There are a lot of people out here who long to be something more and something else. Do not look within and think the answers of eternity will be discovered in the recesses of your own heart or on the topography of your own body.

Do not look around and think emulating some person will answer the deep longing of the heart whose yearnings are born in heaven. God lovingly gives us all the desire to be something else and something more, but those somethings aren't found within our heart, within our head, upon our body, or in being like someone else.

The yearning in us to be more is the desire for new birth through Jesus. The yearning in us to be something else is to discover and become the spiritual men and women God created us to be.

Let the one who has ears hear what the Spirit is speaking through 1 Peter 1:3-9.