Poverty as the ache of a lover

Last week I talked about the aching of our hearts, about feeling our longings and allowing ourselves to be poor before the Lord. We are called to not turn away from those longings, but to lean into them, and as we lean into them, we lean into Christ. And that ache has the power to profoundly change us.

What do I mean by that?

I mean that the ache of our hearts is the admission of our poverty, of our deep and everlasting need that God alone can satisfy. Feeling that ache in our souls, we recognize the depth of our longings, our needs, and become utterly aware of our incapacity to fulfill them ourselves. Our best efforts, in friendships and relationships, in television and food, in good and humble ways and in reckless and self-destructive ways, are insufficient. We cannot satisfy ourselves. We cannot make ourselves whole.

Thanks be to God, that is not the end of our story. Because this aching, this longing and admission of our poverty, at once makes us recognize our need for God and gives us the desire to seek Him out. As our need is known to us, so also the One Who will satisfy it. In our poverty we know our need of the Triune God, and we at last have a heart that is prepared to receive Him. The words of the Psalmist finally become true for us:

“O God, You are my God, I seek You,

my soul thirsts for You;

my flesh faints for You,

as in a dry and weary land where no water is.

So I have looked upon You in the sanctuary,

beholding Your power and glory.”

Psalm 63:1-3, RSV-2CE

And as we look to the Lord in our poverty, as we gaze upon Him in our need, an even deeper truth begins to emerge. It is Him we need. It is Him we long for. More than having our temporal needs met, more than needing to be loved, we need Him. He is not just the only One Who will satisfy our desires. He Himself is that satisfaction. At last the longing for heaven can be recognized for what it is: our longing for everlasting union with Him, the One Who made us and made us for Himself. How little is everything compared to the all-consuming love of God!

Our poverty strips everything away and makes this truth known to us with new brilliance. And in the light of that truth, our hearts are made into the heart of a lover.

And the beauty of it all, of being lost in our longing, of feeling our ache for God, for Love, for Life, is that He comes to meet it, to match it, to magnify it. Like the bridegroom in the Song of Songs, when we cry out for Him, He is swiftly by our side (Song of Songs 1:2, NAB). He does not leave us alone in our longing, because His longing has been for us from the very beginning. His Heart has ached for us far longer than we could ever imagine, and at last we are able to meet Him. How could He not fly to us, the beloved of His heart, who is finally able to say yes to Him?

Choosing this poverty is difficult. It is so much easier to be frustrated, to be angry. It is easier to hide our desires and dampen our longings. It is easier to distrust, easier to go our own way. But this is not the way we were made for. This is not the love story our hearts were made to know. If we have grown tepid, if we have grown tired, if we feel as though we have lost our love of God, perhaps we have simply forgotten how to be poor.

I hope that today, if you find a quiet moment, if you start to feel that aching in your heart, even if it is only faint, don’t hide from it. Let it be felt. Let it be known.

And let it be met.