Anti-Heroes and the Underdogs: Part Two, The Objective

HOMEWARD LONGING, I never felt it so strongly as  I have these last few months watching my school alter.

Not just my school, Moody Bible Institute, but my family as we welcomed my sister's husband in to our tribe, and in myself, when my heart began to open up, I found that it did not very much like to close up again.

So I opened it wider, not towards anyone specifically, even if that's how it started. I am beginning to think that we meet people for seasons who challenge us in the questions that we have been ignoring so that we know how to answer them in the next seasons. I met a faun, the best faun I have ever met, and I'll never regret having met him. I wonder how it was for Lucy when she returned to Narnia and found no Mr. Tumnus to have tea with, what did Mr. Tumnus do with himself? Was her experience of Narnia all in the society of one friend?

No, after all, she was a Queen once. Although Lucy does pause to consider that she'll not find Mr. Tumnus in the land of Talmerines, she then rolls up her sleeves, there is a calling that brought them back to Narnia at this specific time. A war is on that will determine the future of Narnian existence. A War that won't pause because Lucy wants to see her friend waving at her with her handkerchief to invite her in for tea.
She has a responsibility because she opened her heart to the faun to keep it open to the whole of Narnia, from the Lamppost where they met, to Carparival where the trumpet called them back.

 How do we to live with an eternally minded orientation?

Live like there is a war on.

Because ultimately there is. Just because this war has been a long one does not mean that its soldiers can pretend its over. Even if 20 years of service have slowed my enthusiasm, I am still in active duty.

When I was 2 years old I asked Jesus into my tummy, around that time a mighty thunderstorm shook over my house as my grandparents were babysitting me and my little sister. I was soon tearing up the house searching intently. "Tirzah Lee, what are you looking for?" my grandpa asked me, "I need to find my boots!" was my excited reply, "Jesus is coming and I need to find my boots!"

There was a song I loved at that age, "People get ready, Jesus is coming, coming to take you home..." and when better than for Him to arrive with "thunder in His footsteps and lightning in His fists"?

The jaded feeling in my soul from having heartache, heartbreak, and hard work has dimmed my expectation. I have things I want to be and accomplish before He takes me home. At the same time there are many things in this life I wish were over, Heartache, rejection, division, disappointment; it all makes me say "Jesus, I just want to go Home."

Pain is a grumbling in our souls to remind us about the wholesome goodness of G-d.
I find it hard to remember that where there is a hunger or a longing or a discomfort a bread or a balm exists to alleviate.

To Alleviate only?
Or is this life one of hungers and satisfactions and eternity one of either ever increasing pain and hunger or perfected rest and flourishing love?

The Objective of our journey and sufferings are the risks we take to have faith that this Homeward Longing will be gratified. There are too many proofs of gratification for all our other appetites for this one to be left unmatched and unquenched.

Only, if your mother makes dinner and you stay in your room unmoved by her calling, expect to go hungry.

If you fall in love but never pursue or receive love, anticipate to be unsatisfied, especially if you believe there will be no marital strife to work through or disappointments found in the beloved.
 
Saints are not mindless hedonists, we have a service to preform, a quest sanctioned by Messiah and upheld with a code of honor. There is a rhythm of change and consistency. We grow and we do so by the same practice of the same virtues going toward the same destination, the Kingdom.

A long while ago in my freshman year I wrote a thought in my journal that I still hold true, (and am amazed if it is wholly mine):

A religion formed to man's comfort is pliable but fruitless, a compost. It is the pit, the stone that may break our teeth, that will produce a tree when all else is stripped away, which is the Word of G-d. Steadfast, chaffless, His Justice shows up and our interpretations and comfort will melt in the fire at His feet, only that seed will remain with us bare before His throne. G-d remains the same yesterday, today, and forever; He is the only Holy One and what is holy has no room or need for improvement.

The reason behind this is that on the journey many things will be very uncomfortable. Many disappointments and losses lie ahead. Many joys and pleasures too. Yet if we forget the whole objective when we meet with it face to face we will be astonished at our own blindness. In truth, that astonishment will be in us no matter what, but I'd like to lessen it as much as I can. I'd rather be able to remember the taste of strawberries when I walk through desolation, for the remembrance of good things in painful times keep our feet moving even unto death. Imagine how far we can walk remembering that "no one is good but G-d," and "Lo, I am with you always."

We ache, we breathe, we die

All our strivings, all our starving
Ends unconsummated, unsatisfied;
Lights extinguished by poverty
Questioning a deaf authority.

But why have a longing unquenchable?
What cruel divinity produces thus?
Thirst meets water, bread meets hunger
Then so meet my homeward heart
And to home direct this star born chart!

Can I bear the ache and travel on
Or will my heart give way to sorrow?
Bread and wine, education, honor, glory!
Yet one longing thwarted, starved
Will I believe it's fulfillment too hard?

How do I drink-in love, not poison?
Who will provide the wisdom to disuade me
From the sweetly gleaming cyanide?
I will watch, pray, and be obedient
Because to hunger is no man indifferent.