The Ache That Proves Our Faith
‘Cause we are wandering
In a foreign land;
We are children of the
Promise of the faith.
And I long to find it
Can you feel it, too?
That the sun that's shining
Is a shadow of the truth:
This is a far country, a far country
Not my home.
-Andrew Peterson, “The Far Country”
It happens more often than you’d think. I sit at my small wooden desk on a Tuesday or Wednesday, intending to write a meaningful blog post for Thursday. A couple of hours later, the page is blank apart from the title and I’ve lost myself online in three different translations of John 3 OR I am in the throes of an obscure Hebrew word study OR I am reading somebody else’s brilliant writing and convincing myself that they’ve already said everything that needs to be said about a certain topic until the end of time so why should I try? I’m nowhere close to where I started, and nowhere close to a finished post.
Some weeks, the thoughts and words flow easily. Other weeks, it feels like every word is squeezed out of a nearly-dry reservoir of inspiration. This was one of those weeks. On Wednesday I tried all morning to just write, for heaven’s sake, but when the time came to take my parents to the airport in the early afternoon I hadn’t written a thing.
“How has your morning been?” my Mom asked as she climbed into the car.
I made an inarticulate grumbling sound before saying, “Not great. I just literally don’t have an idea of what to write for my post tomorrow. I’ve got nothing.”
“Why don’t you just say that?” my dad helpfully interjected.
“I feel like I’ve already said ‘I have nothing to say’ more times than I can count,” I replied.
“Really?” he asked “I don’t remember that.”
Oof. We’re off to a great start.
“I’m amazed you even come up with something to say every week,” my mom continued as my dad nodded.
“I am too,” I said. “It’s all God.”
WHICH BEGS THE QUESTION: If I have nothing to write, is God not speaking to me?
It is an immature and theologically unsound question, I know, but bear with me.
As I drove home, I decided to turn on my book writing playlist (for the book I haven’t written) to fill the silence. If I’m not actually writing, I can at least listen to music which puts me in the writing mindset, I reasoned. As traffic continued to build, I sighed and wondered, What’s wrong with me? Why do I feel this empty sadness today? In the place I usually find inspiration, there was just this ache. An ache that wouldn’t go away, no matter what I did to persuade myself the ache wasn’t there. And then, the heavens virtually parted and sent rays of light beams into my dulled mind, piercing my darkness with a forgotten but deeply cherished C.S. Lewis quote from Mere Christianity:
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
Of course. The ache I was feeling was homesickness.
There was nothing wrong with me.
Of course there are days—many, many days—in which I can find nothing on earth to satisfy me.
I was not created to be wholly satisfied with earthly things.
Of course this deep pilgrim ache will persist until I am Home at last.
I was created for a far-off place, unknown yet somehow remembered as my first and truest belonging.
Lewis continues,
I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and help others to do the same.
After I remembered that I am, in fact, an eternal creature created for eternal things, I sensed the Spirit nudging me in this direction:
Maybe something’s not wrong with me—maybe something is right with me. The ache proves my faith that there is something more for which I have been created. This ache re-orients me towards God as it causes me to turn towards God and the promise of eternity.
And that’s where I found God—in the middle of my ache, in the middle of traffic, in the middle of a song from my book writing playlist (for the book I haven’t written) called, “Dreaming of Eden.”
I've been dreaming of Eden
I've been longing for freedom
Looking forward to that day
When the world won't groan or see decay…
I was dreaming of Eden. But in my human forgetfulness I had taken that dream for a fantasy, trading it with the lie that my dissatisfaction can be sated with enough effort, enough accomplishment, enough material things on earth.
Beloved of God, perhaps you also find yourself feeling the ache for something more today. In the middle of that ache, no matter how much you feel inclined to condemn yourself for it or numb yourself from it, I invite you to try something different: lean into it. Your ache could be God’s gracious way of reminding you to stay awake—to not settle for less than the inheritance of freedom and eternal life you have in Christ.
On these days of restless longing, I turn to 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 to remind me of what is true:
Therefore we do not lose heart.
Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
I wrote all of this to say, I have nothing to say.
And perhaps that very nothingness is the ache that proves my faith. And maybe yours, too.
Pilgrim, keep going. Your journey is not in vain.
To go deeper: Watch this truly gorgeous video featuring J Lind’s song, “Lean Into It.” It voices everything I’ve attempted to convey but in a much simpler and lovelier way.