God Wants You to Want Him: The Unexpected Gift of Advent Longing

What repeated Scripture, a preschool coloring page and the wisdom of the saints reveal about desire, especially this Advent.

(Photo: Lightstock)

By Meg Stout

Have you ever had a moment where God was communicating something really clearly to you?

He can do so in many different ways: through images, thoughts that arise in prayer, words from other people, homilies or even through nature. For me, he often gets his message across through Scripture, usually at Mass. Because I can miss things unless they’re obvious, he sometimes makes the message impossible to overlook.

Earlier this year, Psalm 84 came up several times within a two-week period. I can’t remember all the ways God sent it to me, but I know it was an antiphon at Mass at least once, and I also heard it in a podcast I listened to. It was even on a coloring page my preschooler had done several months before at school, and somehow it ended up on my counter within those two weeks at the end of summer. As I went to clean it up and saw Psalm 84:1, I smiled.

Ok God, I’m paying attention.

"How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God." Psalm 84:1-2

In these first verses, there is a sense of spiritual homesickness for God’s presence: the exclamation of beauty, the soul longing and fainting, the heart and flesh singing. It didn’t resonate with me at first. I’m phlegmatic and not wired for dramatic longing. But the theme kept returning, and slowly it dawned on me that this is at the very heart of Advent. I actually find myself excited for Advent (not just Christmas) and cultivating within myself anticipation, longing and desiring.

Desire can have a kind of negative connotation. People often think of desirous love, eros, in a reductive sense, likening it only to sensual or sexual desire. However, the ancient Greek philosopher Plato understood eros to be the human urge to strive for that which is good and beautiful. That really translates to reaching for the ultimate Good and the perfectly Beautiful, God Himself.

We can liken Psalm 84 and the season of Advent to a pilgrimage. The psalmist is on the path to the “dwelling place,” the Temple, the Tabernacle. This is the place where God is present. We are pilgrims through Advent, slowly journeying toward Christmas, longing for the presence of the Christ Child. In his commentary on Psalm 84, St. Augustine urges us, “Make vows, and perform to the Lord God what each can: let no one look back, no one delight himself with his former interests, no one turn away from that which is before to that which is behind: let him run until he arrive: for we run not with the feet but with the desire.”

St. Augustine wants us to desire God alone: don’t look back, don’t turn away from what is before you, don’t be pulled to lesser things. Let your desire, your reaching for the Good and Beautiful, compel you to keep journeying on this pilgrimage.

Further in his commentary, he even touches on the topic of waiting:

“Their desire is delayed, in order that it may increase; it increases, in order that it may receive. For it is not any little thing that God will give to him who desires … not anything which he has made will God give, but himself who made all things.”

In Advent, we wait because waiting increases our capacity to receive. And what will we receive? God himself: the infant, Christ Jesus.

If you’re anything like me, your desire for Jesus can be a bit lackluster. We do what we ought (most of the time): attend Mass, try to avoid sin, do our best to be patient, temperate, courageous, etc. But are we inflamed with love for God? Do we want him close, or are we more comfortable with life as it is?

God isn’t content to be distant from us. This is the heart of the Gospel. We were created for relationship with him, but sin separated us. Longing to restore communion, the Father sent his Son in the Incarnation to reconcile us. And so that he would never depart from us, Jesus instituted the Eucharist (CCC 1337). The Father sends the Holy Spirit to sanctify us and draw us near. This is the Spirit’s daily work.

God desires us and pursues us. Advent is an opportunity for us to deepen our longing for him. If we bring whatever desire we have, small or slow as it may be, and honor this Advent season of waiting, the Holy Spirit will widen our capacity to receive the Christ Child at Christmas. Receiving Jesus fully is what our hearts were made for, and when he comes, he delights in finding us waiting.