By: Alyssa and Tyler Beadle, Lead Pastors at Francisco
“I will gather you up… and bring you home again” (Ezekiel 36:24 NLT).
Can you relate? At the end of a long day, we all look forward to the moment we can settle into our favorite chair. But for Ezekiel, home was a long way off.
Ezekiel was no stranger to loss and disappointment. He spent his adolescence preparing and dreaming of the day that he would be installed as a priest in Jerusalem, only to be led off into exile by the conquering Babylonians before his time came. He watched firsthand, as the hard-hearted idolatry of his people brought shame and heartbreak to his homeland. The enemy came, Jerusalem fell, and a people who had once been slaves only to their sin nature, now found themselves as captives in a distant land. All of Israel ached for a mighty move of God.
In Brazilian culture, there is a famous Portuguese word with no English equivalent: “saudade”. When someone has “saudades” it means they are being crippled by a profound sense of longing for someone or something beloved, yet absent. It’s a feeling of lovesick melancholy; a feeling of desire unlike anything else in this world.
Most of us are familiar with this sense of longing. We have a lovesick yearning, deep within–a desperate hunger for God to change our land, our families, our fortunes, our sin nature, our hearts, and even our desires.
God’s promises to Ezekiel extend to us today. He promised that a day would come when He would bring the captives home, heal their land, cleanse away the filth of their stony, stubborn hearts, and replace them with “a tender, responsive heart” (Ezekiel 36:25-26 NLT).
In response to Ezekiel pining for his Lord, God promised that a remnant would return with new transformed hearts. “And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations” (Ezekiel 36:27 NLT).
Throughout this Advent season, we look forward to celebrating the Lord’s first coming, but we do so with a lovesick longing for the day of His return. In the meantime, God promises to give us His Spirit to cleanse our nature, our hearts, and our desires, if only we will seek Him. May we never grow bored with this truth: our “saudades” for God gives His Holy Spirit permission to change everything within us and our futures.
Our God cannot deny a heart that is desperate. Our God cannot deny our “saudades” for Him. There’s no heartache for God He won’t fulfill. So like Ezekiel, we press into God’s presence and seek Him in our moments of longing. Because it’s not a matter of if, but when.