Can’t you satisfy my longing at last?
The question was found in the diary of thirteen-year-old Anne Frank, written in 1944, shortly before she and her family were discovered by the Nazis and eventually killed. Anne and her family were Jews living in hiding with a Christian family in the Netherlands. Anne had been writing about the beauty of the day—the bright sun, the blue sky, and the lovely breeze. She wrote of her longing for something she couldn’t name and had never known. She wrote of her restlessness and she finally posed the question to the universe: Can’t you satisfy my longing at last? It is a prayer. It is a plea. It is a fundamental—perhaps the most fundamental–question of the human heart.
I can imagine a lot of different answers to that question. The answer of the atheist: since the big bang there is nothing but background noise; no answers, no response. Listen as long as you like, it’s all meaningless static. A more malevolent answer: a sinister laugh, the mocking response of a hostile universe bent on crushing all good desire and frustrating every earnest hope. The response of the sages of the East: the question is meaningless because all desire is illusion. I can also imagine the good “Presbyterian” answer: a theologically correct, line upon line, argument demonstrating the goodness of God and the reality of sin. But the problem with all these answers is that they miss the mark; they’re head-answers to heart-questions. They may address a struggling mind but they can never satisfy a restless heart.
How would you answer the question? Our answer has a lot to do with where we stand on what has been called the “Abandonment Option.” Put simply, the Abandonment Option is this: We are either abandoned in the universe—in which case it is either indifferent and hostile so we’d best spend our time and energy protecting ourselves and forgetting such foolish dreams; or we can abandon ourselves to the universe—in which case there is a beneficent power working out a good purpose in the events and circumstances of our lives, no matter how dark or desperate they may appear to be. Either we can or can’t trust the universe. Either there is or isn’t consummation for every longing heart.
I can imagine a lot of possible answers to her question, but I can’t imagine a universe in which a young girl, who was at the mercy of such senseless evil and in the face of such overwhelming brutality, and who held so firmly to hope, could get any answer but one: Can’t you satisfy my longing at last? The answer must be: Yes. Yes, I can…and I will.
The New Testament proclaims in the person and work of Jesus and the words of the apostles a loud and clear affirmation. God’s answer to our longing hearts is an unequivocal yes—with no conditions or qualifications other than a willingness to turn and trust him. Yes! There is consummation for every longing heart. Yes! In the end there is a good and gracious God working out his purposes in every heart that will turn to him. Yes! We can abandon ourselves to the universe without fear. As the writer of the hymn Once to Every Man and Nation has put it:
Though the cause of evil prosper, Yet ‘tis truth alone is strong,
Though her portion be the scaffold, And upon the throne be wrong,
Yet that scaffold sways the future, And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow Keeping watch above His own.
God, can’t you satisfy my longing at last? And Jesus answers: Yes…Yes I can…and I will. Come to me, all of you who are weary and heavy laden…and you will find rest for your souls. In him we can find rest for our restless hearts and satisfaction for our deepest longings.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Don Muncie
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