This Deep Longing Can Only Be Satisfied in Christ
Happy Monday guys! I am reporting once again for my duty to add some light to you on this beautiful Monday morning. But first, how was your weekend? This weekend flew by quickly and I didn’t get the much needed rest (as I already knew). Now, I look forward to Friday night when I can just sleep beta sleep. Anyway, let’s get right into today’s topic.
Most of you already know that I get some of my ideas from watching documentaries of YouTube. These days my television is just for display purposes, as I am often glued to my iPad surfing YouTube for something interesting to watch. So, there I was the other day, scrolling through my feed and stopped at a video of a black entertainer that I knew of growing up. He was what many would refer to as a triple threat in the entertainment industry.
In that YouTube video, it was revealed that he suffered a lot with identity issues and not knowing exactly where he could fit within his community. He was raised by his grandmother who taught him to speak and act properly, and to carry himself with respect. And because of that, he was often teased amongst his peers. He wasn’t the stereotypical black man, who was considered to be “hood,” or ghetto. Even though he grew up around such people.
As he entered his adult years and began pursuing a career in the entertainment industry, what he believed to have left in the past resurfaced. Those in the industry mocked him once again for not being a “real black” man. In an interview he said, “it was as if my own black life didn’t matter.” That aside, he got married twice and divorced twice in a span of a few years. One time he became suicidal as he struggled once again to fit into what society felt that a black man should be.
It was then one of his ex-wives encouraged him to seek solace in therapy, which he confessed helped him navigate the complexities of the emotions he battled on the inside. However, the destination that he then arrived after some time in therapy was surprising and confusing to those who thought they knew him. He decided to finally accept his identity as a Pansexual.
I remember shaking my head because I know this story all too well. It is something that is quite familiar and common to humans. We go out in search of something to satisfy the deep longing within us and arrive at a destructive destination. Little wonder Proverbs 14:12 says, “there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”
We have our blinders on against the truth, that we are unable to recognize it when it approaches us. Or we have been so conditioned by the enemy through society, media, and even (sometimes) our households, that the truth is somehow a lie because it robs us of the life we truly want to live.
Before I digress further, the actor revealed that at some point in his life he was attracted to men. And since he never explored that physically, he considers himself to be a pansexual. One who is attracted to men, women, bisexuals, transsexuals, and the list is unexhaustive. After watching the video, I left this comment: “sexual perversion is also not going to satisfy him, he is in search of Christ, I hope he finds him one day.”
Like this man, many of us have that deep desire for something that provides meaning to our lives. And without Christ’s guidance, we go on this wild goose chase to try to find it in other people, careers, money, religion, vices, and(or) material possessions.
Such behaviors are not limited to us living today. In biblical times, the people were also plagued with something similar and their stories are written to us as a warning so we don’t go down the same path, or as an encouragement that if they overcame, we too can overcome.
John chapter 4, tells us of this type of story. Jesus on his way to Galilee one day stopped at a Jacob’s well in Samaria because he was wearied from his trip. There he met a woman who came to fetch water, whom he asked to give him some water to drink. She on the other hand was marveled that a Jew asked a Samaritan for something. Verse 8 says, “…For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.”
Jesus then said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman again was perplexed that someone who asked her for a drink, and who even had nothing to draw water from the well with, boasted of having “living water.” Which wan be living water again? She must have thought.
John 4:13-14 says, “Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Jesus demonstrated through this text that he is the only one who can satisfy a human completely. Every other thing that we may use to fill that void on the inside (that we all have), will only provide temporal relief (if any relief at all). Then the woman said, ah, please give me this water oh, because who wants to be coming to the well every day to fetch water? Then Jesus asked her to call her husband (the 2023 feminists are squirming, haha).
This however, was not the typical scenario you see on the streets in Lagos when a woman gets into an altercation with a strange man and he commands her to go and call her husband, because he doesn’t want to address her. The reason why Jesus asked her to go and get her husband wasn’t because he looked down on women, perhaps it was because he wanted to get to the root of the problem he knew she had, that we’ve all had (or still have).
The woman then answered him, “I have no husband.” He applauded her honesty and revealed that she had been married five times, and the sixth person she was with wasn’t even her husband. She was taken aback that he knew this deep truth about her. Like it was stated earlier, the Jews didn’t even mix with the Samaritans. So, there was no way that a Jew would have known her gist.
She then ran back home to call her people to see if Jesus was indeed the Messiah that they knew would one day come. As such, Jesus ended up staying with them a few days before he continued with his journey. And the people there believed in him.
The Woman, The Entertainer, and Myself
I see a lot of similarities with this woman, the entertainer, and myself. I remember when I went from relationship to relationship in search of someone who will love me and make a lasting commitment with me through marriage. In fact, there were times when as soon as a relationship ended, (amid my tears), I’d ask my friends to set me up with another person.
I was never big on drinking alcohol, smoking or even intense partying. So, for me, romantic relationships were my vices. It wasn’t until I encountered Christ, the one who many years ago, spoke to that woman at the well, telling her about a living water that will enable her not to thirst again, that I stopped craving relationships.
I can tell you as a soon-to-be 35-year-old single woman that Jesus is the only one that truly satisfies. I don’t look at myself and think that something must be wrong with me, or that I am missing out on anything. I don’t drown my pillows with tears at night because I am unmarried. And it is not because that a vice has taken that spot, but it is because that the rightful owner of that position now occupies it.
Vices never satisfy; sex will only keep you wanting for more and more of it. And when sex with the opposite sex no longer does it for some people, then like the entertainer, they dive deeper down the perversion rabbit hole and begin to sell themselves to what the bible clearly condemns, all in search of the Savior and they don’t know it.
Consider this: if only, the entertainer encountered someone who feared the Lord, who could identify that what he was truly seeking was Jesus, he probably wouldn’t identify with sexual perversion today. If only the Samaritan woman had met Christ earlier, she probably wouldn’t have been through five marriages. If only I understood (early on) that my self-worth and identity can only be found in Christ, Lord knows that I wouldn’t have been in the many relationships/situationships that I have been in.
Before you beat yourself up and begin to think that there is no hope for you, remember that it is never too late to seek Christ. He always provides us with that opportunity to come back home to him. 2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise as some of you count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”
Thank God that he always beckons to everyone to come to him. Jesus in Matthew 11:28-29 says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Your countless degrees wouldn’t do it, your lover wouldn’t do it, your children wouldn’t do it, drugs and alcohol would never do it. Money, marriage, material possessions, sex, climbing up the corporate ladder, entertainment, social media, religion, and whatever else you could dream up, will never give you the true satisfaction that you desire. Only Christ can.
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