Letters to the Family of God
by Joe Franzone | July 7, 2022 | Pastor's Blog
July 7, 2022
I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy
Down in my heart (where?)
Down in my heart (where?)
Down in my heart
I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy
Down in my heart (where?)
Down in my heart to stay
I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy
By George William Cooke
Lord, you are my God;
I will exalt you and praise your name,
for in perfect faithfulness
you have done wonderful things,
things planned long ago.
Dear Friends,
Unfulfilled desires are part and parcel of life. They are an inescapable reality in this fallen world. However, there is good in unfulfilled desires. Ultimately, they point to another world – a world we can only reach because of the finished work of Christ on the cross. Therein, unfulfilled desires are clues to something bigger.
Something Bigger
Have you ever thought of unfulfilled desires through the lens of evangelism?
It is not uncommon for Christians because they love lost people to hear as they share the Gospel of some great need the person has and say something like, Jesus can help you with that, and of course, He can. But what if they asked when?
Last week I finished reading the book Maid, which my daughter gifted me at Christmas. Written by Stephanie Land, the actual maid, she tells of her single mom's life trying to make her way. In one of many dark moments, on the brink of homelessness, she remembered the times she would serve meals at the church she grew up in to the destitute poor. After telling one gentleman, Jesus loves you, he responded with, He seems to love you a little more.
Someone Better
Perhaps, and I think it is, the reason why life is so painful and yet wonderful is it reflects the need for the Gospel, which is also painful and wonderful at once. The Gospel tells us we are more sinful and broken than we ever would believe, and at the same time, we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ because of Jesus Christ than we ever dared dream. Pain and wonder.
In Thomas Becknell’s Enchantments of The Mississippi, He writes of the beauty of the majestic Mississippi River and at the same time bones of thousands of slaves on slave ships that sunk to the bottom of the Mississippi River. Pain and wonder.
Unfulfilled desires are like a signpost or like an ache of longing that nothing on this planet can satisfy. Here is pleasure and pain expressing the incompleteness of life, and every person on this planet knows some measure of this. They could look to the material world, achievements, relationships, or to themselves to kill the pain and fulfill the desire. When it doesn’t, because it can’t, then what?
Jesus, in His earthly ministry, spoke with a rich young ruler (Mark 10:17-27), a scholar (Luke 10:25-37), an elite religious teacher (John 3:1-21), and a woman who had many husbands (John 4:1-26). Each was very good at some aspect of life on this earth but remained disillusioned. They wanted more, and they knew it. Something inside them (God setting eternity in human hearts Ecc.3:11) led them to someone—Jesus. As He spoke, He placed His words within their framework to remove any tied-to-earth solutions.
We all have these aches of longing. The tragedy is we look to the temporal for that which can only be provided in the eternal. So, there will always be tears here. No tears there. Those without Christ need to know this.
God bless you. You are well-loved by our friend Jesus.
Pastor Joe