The Pain of Desire

If you’ve ever experienced the pain of desire, you know what I’m talking about and don’t need an explanation. But if you don’t know what I mean, allow me to paint you a picture…

I believe I first experienced the pain of desire when I was 13 years old (or it was the first time I had the realization that this is what it was). I was a young girl, lonely and aching for love. In my immaturity, I thought this desire for love could be fulfilled by a person, but there was no such person in my life to attempt to fill the void with. I therefore became depressed and despised life, for what kind of life is it if you are always in pain, desiring what you cannot have? But then, one day at church, somebody was sharing their testimony of how God had touched their life and I saw a joy in them that I had never seen before and which I longed to have. I ran to the bathroom to try and hide the tears that were welling up, as the pain of desire grew even stronger – only now, the object of that desire had changed. I wanted to know that joy, the true joy of having experienced His touch.

However, I naively thought that once I did experience His touch that I would be forever satisfied and the pain would finally cease. To some extent this was true. I went to some revival meetings and He met me there! I felt His love for me and I knew that He was real and I realized that He cared about me and I was forever changed. That encounter with the living God, with my Bridegroom Jesus, ruined me for eternity – no longer would I ever be able to find satisfaction in anything less than Him. And I had JOY! I laughed like I had never laughed before – such joy bubbled from inside my spirit at His touch. And I was fully satisfied. But it didn’t last…

It didn’t last?? (You ask) Shouldn’t the love of God satisfy so that you never thirst again?? Yet it doesn’t work like that! Once you’ve had just a taste of Him, you MUST have more! The last drink completely quenches your thirst, but the next day, or the next week, you find you are thirsty for it again! Allow me to use an earthly example: When Joe and I were dating, it came to the moment where we had our first kiss. Oh, it was bliss!! Never had I imagined his lips would be so soft and so delicious! (Forgive me if I am being too descriptive!) And I was soaring high for days on the delight of kissing him, reliving the experience, which brought multiple smiles to my lips just at the thought of it. But it didn’t take long before the memory was no longer enough – I wanted to experience the pleasure of his kiss again and again and again! (Forgive me again for being so mushy) But this is truly how it is with my relationship with Jesus. After one “kiss”, so to speak, I found it was never enough. I was always left wanting more.

And so this pain of desire.

As Mike Bickle put it in his series on “Contemplative Prayer” – “Hunger is God’s gift to you. That hunger has overwhelming delight and it has anguish! …There’s two sides of love… God uses the one overwhelming love to absolutely empower and enthrall us. He uses the ‘hiding of His face’ kind of love in order to produce meekness, tenderness and dependancy… Your anguish for God today…is the work of God in you… it is the token of God’s hand upon your heart.”

But when you’re in a season where it feels like God is “hiding His face” from you and you can’t sense His presense like before, it is truly anguish! There is pain in desiring to encounter the heart and love of God, and it certainly doesn’t feel good in the moment – I feel like pounding my fists on His chest and yelling, “WHERE ARE YOU???” Yet, it’s those moments of desperation and hunger and longing that make the moments when you hear His voice or feel His touch all the better and all the more satisfying. I don’t understand it fully, but I have to believe that when I’m in those times of painful desire and longing that it will come to an end, and that it won’t last forever, and that He is using it to produce love in my heart for Him. I have to believe that He will come and satisfy the desires of my heart, just as He promised He would.