When Longing for God is Already a Form of Prayer

Blog by Gem Fadling

It is easy to assume that I am initiating much of what happens in my spiritual life. I come to faith. I pray. I engage spiritual practices. I serve. All of that is true, and yet there is a little too much “I” in that story for my taste. When I stay there too long, my spiritual life can quietly turn into another self-managed project.

 prayer

It serves my heart better to remember that God is the great Initiator. God creates, breathes life and invites. And according to Philippians 1:6, God began a good work and will carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. My spiritual life does not begin with my effort but with God’s movement toward me.

If God is the great Initiator, that makes me the grateful responder. My role is not to force transformation but to notice where God is already at work and to say yes. Again and again, I am responding to God coming toward me in ways both seen and unseen.

You have heard me talk about pushing, trying, and angsting, or PTA, before, especially in my book, Hold That Thought. PTA is an internal energy that I long wanted to leave behind. It was exhausting me and causing real emotional and physical harm. Even as I faithful engaged my work, something in my way was quietly eroding my well-being.

As I began to make headway in letting go of that unhelpful energy, I found myself longing for a new kind of God-breathed way of living. I assumed it would feel like love, joy, or peace in a way I could clearly recognize and sense in my body. And so I waited. I waited for months.

I assumed this prayed-for energy of love would arrive with the same intensity and clarity as the anxiety of PTA. But nothing dramatic emerged. Instead, things grew quieter. The only thing I could sense was my longing for a new way, a longing for God. At times, the quiet felt confusing, even disappointing.

After more than a year, I stumbled upon an insight that gently reframed everything for me.

Maybe holding the longing to be compelled by love is the same as the answered prayer. What if the longing itself counts? Longing is connection with God. Longing may not be the absence of something still withheld. Maybe it is a thing in itself, something that can be experienced and even enjoyed. Longing binds me to an ongoing prayer of holding and to God himself.

I shared this with my friend Marla, and she reminded me that James Finley speaks of this often. Here is a snippet from a recent podcast episode:

“Habitual prayer is really a prayer that embodies the habitual longing that echoes God’s habitual longing for us….The deepening in the mutuality of the longing is where the intimacy happens.” (James Finley from the Way of the Pilgrim season of the Turning to the Mystics Podcast)

Finley adds an essential dimension to my insight. My longing is not something separate from God. It is an echo of God’s longing for me. As that longing deepens, intimacy deepens with it. In a quiet and surprising way, I already had what I thought I was waiting for. My soul was mirroring God’s desire to connect with me, even though I did not yet know how to recognize or receive it.

I think part of my resistance came from my dislike of waiting or longing at all. I tend to assume that longing means absence, that it proves I do not yet have what I desire. Finley’s words gently realigned me. My longing is not separation from God. It is connection to the very thing I want, God and his love.

This kind of connection does not rely on words but on knowing. I find that deeply comforting. It is relational, organic, and quietly alive beneath the surface of my days.

So I no longer discount my longing. I receive it as the gift it is, an intimate mutuality of love between the Creator and the created.

As I continue to release the energies of pushing, trying, and angsting, I am learning to welcome the quiet, simple longing within me. It is an echo of God’s love, gently reverberating in my heart, inviting me to rest, respond, and trust that God is already here.

Reflection 

• What unhelpful energies are shaping your spiritual life right now?
• What do you notice yourself longing for in your connection with God?
• How might you receive your longing today as a sign of God’s desire for you?