Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while—yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

• 2 Corinthians 7:8-10

Choose my instruction instead of silver,
    knowledge rather than choice gold,
for wisdom is more precious than rubies,
    and nothing you desire can compare with her.

• Proverbs 8:10-11

“What does not satisfy when we find it, was not the thing we were desiring.”

• C.S. Lewis, The Pilgrim’s Regress

“He may say on his arrival down here [meaning arriving in Hell], ‘I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.’”

• C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Sehnsucht is German for an intense yearning, longing, or craving.  It is more specific in craving than fernweh, which is basically the opposite of homesickness (far away sickness?).  In other words, a longing to be out there, but not specifically out “where.”  When I wrote about Sehnsucht before, I said there is a lot in the writings of C.S. Lewis where he longs for Joy.

The things of this world sparkle.  The advertising campaigns make it sound like we cannot live without it.  But once we have it, we do not gain satisfaction.  Were the advertisements misleading?  Possibly, but what was our desire?

Some things are made bright and shining to distract us from what gives us lasting peace, lasting Joy, lasting hope.  Indeed, those bright and shining things of this world distract us from what produces salvation within us.

But if we can exercise our imagination for a moment, the brightest and shiniest of all things on earth pales in comparison to the presence of God.  God made all the things that are turned into bright and shining things on earth.  But He made limitations in our eyes and our hearts.  We could not handle the glory of God in our present earthly bodies.  When we get our new bodies, we will see His wonders.

I have thought about sensations here on earth.  Have you ever had a pleasant sensation that made your entire body tingle?  Just wait.  One touch from our Master Jesus and that greatest feeling you ever had on earth will be yawn-worthy.

Bachman-Turner Overdrive wrote a song called “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” based on a line in an old Al Jolson song.  But when we arrive in Heaven, we could, if we were inclined, to think that we ain’t seen nothing yet, heard nothing yet, felt nothing yet, smelled nothing yet, or tasted nothing yet.

And saying all this about the next life does not eliminate the pleasures that are not against God’s Law in this life.  In fact, those will be intensified, knowing what is to come.

Let our yearning, our longing, our Sehnsucht be for the things of God.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.