The Seven Longings of the Human Heart - Week #1

Preface/Introduction – The Nature of Longing

“A longing is an ache of the heart. It cannot be reasoned with, negated or dismissed. If not attended to, it will overtake us. One way or another, whether legitimately or illegitimately, a human longing will be filled. It must be.”

In the introduction of this book, Mike Bickle stresses how we, as humans, are hard-wired to want and to need, and how we are also hard-wired to have those needs and wants satisfied only in God.

The seven longings that the author identifies in this book are the following:
• The longing for the assurance that we are enjoyed by God
• The longing to be fascinated
• The longing to be beautiful
• The longing to be great
• The longing for intimacy without shame
• The longing to be wholehearted and passionate
• The longing to make a deep and lasting impact

Although the enemy uses these longings to tempt us into darkness and sin, they are actually reflections of characteristics in God Himself. We cannot repent for having these longings because they are God-given. Our repentance must be for the way in which we satisfy these longings. They are inescapable realities about what it means to be a human.

“The longings are dynamically connected to who God is, and no amount of makeshift or false pleasures can compare with their ultimate fulfillment. Each longing is a means by which we can understand God more deeply…”

The Bridal Paradigm
Bickle introduces what he calls the “bridal paradigm”; in other words, it’s a way of looking at God as One “who enjoys us and is filled with affection for us, embracing us even in the midst of our weakness and stumbling.” This particular way of seeing God is related to the beauty of Jesus, the heavenly Bridegroom, who imparts His beauty (holiness) to His eternal Bride, the Church. This understanding will equip our hearts with holy affection to withstand the immense pressure and persecution that is coming to the final generation. Only holy love (God’s love revealed to the human heart and our love given back to Him) will empower the human heart to endure what is coming before Christ’s return.

Affection-based obedience to the Lord is much more powerful than fear or obligation-based obedience. In the Kingdom of God, lovers will always outwork workers, because there’s an energy that accompanies love that runs out when we are driven by obligation and the desire for approval.

In the missions world of which I have been part my entire life, the primary message I received has been one of motivation through obligation. Being motivated by love (first, God’s unchanging love and affection for me then my love back to Him and then out to others), is the motivation that has sustaining power in the long haul. This is the motivation that the apostle Paul refers to in II Cor. 5:14, “For the love of Christ compels us…”

None of us needs to be convinced that the emotional brokenness of our age is unprecedented in human history, and it will increase. It takes a revelation of the emotions of God’s heart towards people (seen best in the cross) to heal the emotional brokenness of our generation, and so this understanding of His affections, His emotions toward humans, will be a liberating revelation, empowering His people to walk in holiness and boldness in the day of trouble.

The human heart is designed with desire for pleasure and without finding the fulfillment of that in the “superior pleasures” of God, we will (we can’t help but) go after other pleasures. If we get even a little taste of the “pleasures at His right hand” (Psa. 16:11), we will find that little by little the inferior pleasures lose their hold on us.

Nothing in human experience is as pleasurable as touching God and being touched by Him!! “Fullness of joy” is what that is called in Psalm 16, and it is available to all who will ask and seek and knock.

So Holy Spirit, come and help us desire Jesus; uncover the desire and longing that God has hard-wired in us and that we have attempted to satiate with lesser pleasures that never satisfy. Help us get in touch with Who we are really wanting, the Lord Jesus. Thank You for hearing our prayer.

Next week we’ll cover chapter one, “The Longing to Be Enjoyed by God.”