A Search for a Haven: "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"

I was listening to U2 recently, and their song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" began to play. The song is a bit forlorn, and you can here in Bono's voice a longing for something--a place, a haven, a connection, maybe even a person. As the song traverses several options that the Singer has tasted, the chorus keeps coming back to the title: "I still haven't found what I'm longing for." What haunts me about the song is the lack of resolution, to be honest. As a Christian educator and minister, I like to think that I've found whatever the singer is seeking. But have I really? Here are the lyrics to the song: 

"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"

I have climbed the highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you

I have run, I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you

But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for
But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for

I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
It burned like fire
This burning desire

I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone

But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for
But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for

I believe in the Kingdom Come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
But yes, I'm still running

You broke the bonds and you loosed the chains
Carried the cross of my shame
Of my shame
You know I believe it

But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for
But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for
But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for
But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for 

I remember reading somewhere that this song was inspired by King David and the Psalms (and perhaps a poet Bono was reading). The subject for which the artist is searching is left unsaid, or perhaps better, unfound. We have no description of what would satisfy this longing to find what is being sought . . . but we hear the single minded laser focus and incredible longing of the one seeking. 

Perhaps the Christian imagery and the "You" of the last verse gives us an idea, but if so the singer refuses to tell us. He is still searching. 

I'll be honest, I have found in Jesus a respite, a place, even room to belong and to be myself. And yet, there are still times of longing, of searching, of dreaming, of reaching . . . what exactly is it I want? What do I need? 

Maybe I can borrow from another singer and song? Tonio K sings that "You Will Go Free" (you can hear the song here: You Will Go Free). Towards the end of the song, our artist sings the following Bridge and Verse 3:

You can't see your jailer
You can't see the bars
You can't turn your head around fast enough
But it's everywhere you are
It's all around you
Everywhere you walk these prison walls surround you

But in the midst of all this darkness
In the middle of this night
I see the truth cut through this curtain like a laser
Like a pure and holy light
And I know I can't touch you now
Yeah, and I don't want to speak too soon
But when we get sprung from out these cages baby
God knows what we might do

The song addresses the angst of a person who has come to realize that his or her situation is caged in by a variety of less than good situations: bad choices, the devil himself, sin, etc. But the hopefulness of the final verse always gets me. "Truth" will "cut through this curtain like a laser." We humans will one day realize freedom, the kind that only God's Truth can ultimately bring us. The kind of haven or freedom so desired by Bono above. 

But there is a catch (isn't there always?). We don't get to the "truth" without living life and having experiences that take our breath away (in both good and bad ways). Even if we know Jesus, and even if we understand that he is "what I'm looking for," we realize that in this particular time and this particular age and this particular life there is still something lacking, something missing, something we are looking for or longing for but which we still haven't found. 

You understand, right? You've found something wonderful, something that overwhelms you in a good way . . . and yet there is still darkness . . . there is still a longing for freedom . . . a longing to breathe . . . a longing to be free, to be TRULY and IRREVOCABLY free to be who we were created to be. 

We want to be REAL, to be AUTHENTIC. Like the Velveteen Rabbit, we may have experienced rejection and hard times, and we may have embraced kindness and acceptance . . . and yet, and yet, . . . we also know we aren't quite REAL.

I think that this is a common human reality, and I've come to realize that living in this world I will continue to find darkness and light, hatred and love, rejection and acceptance, death and life, . . . and maybe I'll face one of them more than the others. 

Maybe you understand, you're in the darkest hole you've ever experienced, . . . and yet there seems to be a pin point of light exposing the darkness. Or maybe your situation is all good . . . and yet nibbling around the edges of your subconscious is the idea that it is not quite THE GOOD that you really want (or worse, really NEED).

I've lived those realities. I've known love that brought tears to my eyes, that made me think life couldn't be better. I've also known loss that made me think I'd lose my soul . . . the darkness was so deep I couldn't see how life could ever happen again. I still hadn't found what I was looking for . . .  

I wish I had answers, but I only have a story. I am convinced that one day the laser light of Truth will indeed shine and humanity will experience a change. At that time we will see Jesus as he is, and what we see will either terrify or bless us . . . 

Someday we will be REAL. Unfortunately that REALNESS will be a blessing to some and a curse to others. Here's why I say that: the Light of God's Truth is Jesus. When he returns, those of us who know him and are in him will become in some sense as he is. Those who are not, well, let's just leave that sad story alone for the moment. I don't know if I can comprehend the darkness of that existence. 

You see, the goal is to be WITH GOD. Tonio K sings in "You Belong With Me": 

Now you live in your world and I live in mine
But the collision of worlds is just a matter of time
'Cause you belong with me

The song is one of longing and love, but I've come to understand it as God singing to humanity. We belong to him, and one day our worlds will collide. One day we will see him. At that point, things will make a lot more sense. 

I don't have easy answers. I know that I will experience light and dark before I see him as he is. I also know that I will only be REAL when he makes it so. 

We are searching for a haven, a place to belong, someone to LOVE us and find worth in us. We can experience snippets of it in this life, but we will still long for what we know we want: to be REAL.

Even so, Lord Jesus, come. 

Thanks for reading! 

Freedom and Humility: A Repost

Some time back (about the time I first started writing on this blog), I posted a note on the topic of "Freedom."  Reading through my posts recently, I thought this note might be worthwhile for a re-post with some changes.  I hope it is a blessing to you.

1 Peter 5:6-7
6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. (NASU)

“Be not anxious! Earthly possessions dazzle our eyes and delude us into thinking that they can provide security and freedom from anxiety. Yet all the time they are the very source of all anxiety. If our hearts are set on them, our reward is an anxiety whose burden is intolerable. Anxiety creates its own treasures and they in turn beget further care. When we seek for security in possessions we are trying to drive out care with care and the net result is the precise opposite of our anticipations. The fetters which bind us to our possessions prove to be cares themselves.” From The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Phil 3:19-21
20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; 21 who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. (NASU)

What does it mean to be free? That isn't really a rhetorical question.

In America we talk of "Freedom" as if it is a birthright or an entitlement. We all want our "rights" protected so that we can pursue whatever petty little thing it is that makes us feel better.

Is this freedom?

I mean, look around us--we are tied to our cares and our anxieties, we are chained to our possessions. We run around anxiously trying to protect the very things that often hold us in the very chains of bondage.

Why do we do that?

Why do we think that a new job, spouse, relationship, haircut, car, movie, boat, home, location, etc. will free us into some kind of blissful realm of happiness?

I don't know that I can answer that, but I am aware of a remedy.

HUMILITY

It doesn't come cheap, and it isn't easy to maintain, but humility will help us break free from bondage.

Look at the Bonhoeffer quote above, then read the passage from Philippians underneath it.

Paul tells us that our citizenship is in another country besides this earthly domain. We don't belong here. Since we don't belong, why do we waste our time buying into the stuff of this place? Why do we bind ourselves to the stuff of earth?

Those who are Christ followers have a home that is not primarily located in this mundane, temporary place. We have a home that is not fully realized yet (to be sure), but one in which we can live to some degree right now. We don't have to wait for Independence Day or Christ's return, we can live in the gracious and overwhelming abundance/liberty of our King now.

Okay, enough preaching. Here's the deal. We were meant to be free with heavenly freedom. We were not meant to be chained up here. Jesus didn't live, die, and get out of the grave just so we could have the latest laptop or so that our kids could enjoy the newest video games.

Jesus lived so that he could grant us true freedom. The freedom he grants liberates us from hanging too tightly to stuff, too selfishly to our own expectations and dreams; and this freedom offers us the chance to be real, to be authentic, to live as we were meant to live.  Christ's gift is to free us from chains of ego and selfishness so that we might live in the liberation of humility.  He puts us all on the same level, and then he loves us with the same gracious and holy love.  Shouldn't we follow his example of humility and love?

When the the light of Jesus shines into our darkness and illuminates the world around us, I think things become more "real" for lack of a better term.  We can see things as they are.  Some of those things may scare us a bit, but with God's help even the broken things can become benefits.  And I admit, there is a part of me that LONGS for that to become reality.  Even so, Lord Jesus, come . . .

Tonio K sings a song that may be appropriate here. The song is entitled "You will go Free."

you've been a prisoner
been a prisoner all your life
held captive in an alien world
where they hold your need for love to your throat like a knife
and they make you jump
and they make you do tricks
they take what started off as such an innocent heart
and they break it and break it and break it
until it almost can't be found

well i don't know when
and it don't know how
i don't know how long it's gonna take
i don't know how hard it will be
but i know
you will go free

you can call it the devil
call it the big lie
call it a fallen world
what ever it is it ruins almost everything we try
it's the sins of the fathers
it's the choices we make
it's people screaming without making a sound
from prison cells in paradise
where we're chained to our mistakes

well i don't know when
and it don't know how
i don't know how much it's gonna cost you
probably everything
but i know
you will go free

you can't see your jailer
you can't see the bars
you can't turn your head round fast enough
but it's everywhere you are
it's all around you
and everywhere you walk this prison yard surrounds you

but in the midst of all this darkness
in the middle of this night
i see truth cut through this curtain like a laser
like a pure and holy light
and i know i can't touch you now
and i don't want to speak too soon
but when we get sprung
from out of our cages baby
god knows what we might do

well i don't know when
and it don't know how
i don't know if you'll be leaving alone
or if you'll be leaving with me
but i know
you will go free

Be free.

Live humbly.

Do justice.

Thanks for reading!