March 19: Longing for God

By Abby Mohaupt

Isaiah 26:9

¹On that day, this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
 Ours is a strong city! God makes salvation its walls and ramparts.

² Open the gates and let a righteous nation enter, a nation that keeps faith.

³ Those with sound thoughts you will keep in peace, in peace because they trust in you.

⁴ Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord is a rock for all ages.

⁵ He has thrown down those living on high, and he will level the lofty town, leveling it down to the earth, he will bring it down to dust.

⁶ The feet trample it,
 the feet of the poor, the steps of the needy.

⁷ The way of the righteous is level; you clear a path for the righteous.

⁸ In the path of your justice, Lord, we wait for you;
 with all our being, we long for your name and your acclaim.

⁹ At night I long for you with my whole being; my spirit within me watches for you.

When I was in sixth grade, my sister Hillary and I repainted our bedroom bright blue. We painted a huge tree over the door (actually the door itself was part of the trunk and the leaves of the tree reach toward the ceiling). We painted a mushroom in one corner and fairies along the window. We put stars on the ceiling and grass bordering around the whole circumference of the room. And then we painted, “At night I long for you with all my heart (Isaiah 26:9)” over the closet doors. In that whimsical room, we felt like there was some longing—some dreaming for something else.

I spent countless hours in that room—reading, sleeping, writing. The year we repainted our bedroom, I was starting to read the Bible through for the first time, and I was falling in love with the words of a people who were writing long ago about their own longings. My preteen heart resonated with the Psalms that called out for God to see and hear the Psalmist. I carried with me vivid memories of being bullied, so I resonated with the stories of a people who were pushed around and wanted a God to be on their side. My new-ish faith made me curious about the Gospels and how the stories weren’t all the same, but somehow pointed to the same truth—that God really is faithful and loving and gracious.

But I really resonated with a sense of longing—of wanting to know God. It was at night… looking up at the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars we made into constellations… that I felt like I could formulate my prayers and thoughts and that I thought I could feel God listening.

My parents have since repainted most of the room (they kept some of the tree branches above the door), and part of me mourned the loss of that verse painted on the wall. Part of me mourns the loss of my own quietness, and I wonder if I still long to know God the way I did then.

It’s a different feeling now that I have for God—less of a longing of my heart and more of a thirst of my brain and an ache of my feet.

Mary Oliver wrote:

Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have. I walk out to the pond and all the way God has given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell; grant me, in your mercy, a little more time. Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart. Who knows what will finally happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.

Maybe I’m still longing—just in a different way.