longing on Empowerment

Lord, Teacher, Savior, Friend: We need Your grace, which forgives our sins; Your truth, which anchors our lives; Your presence, which calms our fears; Your call, which gives us purpose; Your hope, whi...

Awe is more than an emotion; it is a way of understanding, insight into a meaning greater than ourselves. The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe.

The engaged mind, illuminated by truth, awakens awareness; the engaged heart, affected by love, awakens passion. May I say once more - this essential energy of the soul is not an ecstatic trance, high...

The simple question, “What do I want?” can lead to important change.

Your words and ways are Perfect Sure Right Clear Your words and ways are Pure True Righteous Every one Their value, beyond price Their goodness, beyond delight Their counsel, en...

That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.

We come to this place seeking something ... something better than ourselves; something that gives life meaning; some relationship that reaches deep into our souls to fulfill us; maybe e...

Something deep within us is unsettled, and we want to appear to the world as better, more dignified, or more desirable—someone more beautiful or clever than the mope we see in the mirror.

"What is it you’re looking for in this endless quest? Tranquillity. You think if only you can acquire enough worldly goods, enough recognition, enough eminence, you will be free, there’ll b...

In this excerpt of a poem by William Wordsworth, the poet describes our yearning for life beyond this life. Our desire for something greater than ourselves: Whether we be young or old, Our desti...

O God, our resurrection and life, the promise of Your new life in Christ is like a breath of fresh air in a dry and thirsty land. We have gathered as believers, and as those who are honestly seeking t...

Gregg Easterbrook wrote about this in a 2003 book called The Progress Paradox. Easterbrook’s subtitle was How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse. He describes how affluent we have become—​​​bett...

Joy’s trick is to supply  Dry lips with what can cool and slake,  Leaving them dumbstruck also with an  ache Nothing can satisfy.

We are made for God: for God’s glory, to worship God and reflect his likeness. That is our heart’s deepest desire, the source of our deepest vocation.

Introduction There are two significant ways in which waiting is central to our passage today. First, there is the waiting to be reunited with the apostle Paul and the fledgling church in Thessalonica...

Prayer of Confession Jesus, we thirst We thirst for love and belonging We thirst for security and provision We thirst for truth and hope We thirst for healing for our wounds We thirst for mercy for o...

Good and Gracious God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: we come to You as an impatient people filled with a multitude of desires and needs. We yearn for simple things--the arrival of warm weather, enough...

God has come to us and revealed Himself fully to us Yet too often we hide ourselves from His love and salvation Instead of focusing on you, Lord God, we focus on ourselves Instead of trusting yo...

I recently found, hidden in plain sight, the secret formula for writing a bestselling book. Yes, you read that right. My discovery created a surge of power that I could hardly handle. It felt like lea...

Almighty and Everlasting God, in whom we live and move and have our being, who has created us for yourself, so that our hearts are restless until they find rest in you, grant to us purity of heart and...

Leader: How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! Our souls long, yes, faint for the courts of the Lord; our hearts and flesh sing to the living God. People: For the Lord God is a sun and ...

Sin comes when we take a perfectly natural desire or longing or ambition and try desperately to fulfill it without God. Not only is it sin, it is a perverse distortion of the image of the Creator in u...

Many deceptions only appeal to us because there is something inside us that "wants" to believe them. They are seductive because of darkness and wrong motives in our own lives. We must search...

Tony Reinke does a great job capturing the deep ambivalence many of us feel about our smartphones in this short excerpt: This blasted smartphone! Pesk of productivity. Tenfold plague of beeps and ...

Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind—these are all a dr...

Leader: How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! People: My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Leader: Blessed are ...

When we are denied the very things our hearts long for, we learn to long for the one thing that will never be denied us, God Himself.

Many of the greatest Christian spiritual teachers and mystics such as Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Ignatius Loyola, or some of the seventeenth-century Anglican spiritual writers focus on the language...

Leader: Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! All: Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands...

In a letter to his son, J. R. R. Tolkien famously wrote, “We all long for [Eden], and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is...