religious feelings: yearning and hope
All human feelings, positive and negative, relate to God in one way or another,
because all our affections are aspects of love, and God is Love itself.
In the first editorial in this series we looked at the feeling of holiness and
awe that a sense of being in the presence of the Divine generates. Then in the
March-April issue the subject was the feeling of holy fear and unworthiness
that an awareness of the Lord’s goodness and mercy toward us engenders.
Now we’ll consider the feelings of yearning and hope that the Lord inspires
in us and that the life of religion nurtures.
The deepest desire of every human heart is for heaven and all that heaven
means. This is because we were created for eternal life, and know instinctively
that this world is not our final home. The highest of human hopes, then, is that
we will be saved from hell and brought into heaven. What would religion be
– what would life be – without that yearning and that hope?
Yearning for heaven has an element of nostalgia in it, or longing for a
return to past states of innocence, peace and the unself-conscious happiness
we experienced in our infancy and early childhood. Such states, lodged deep
within our unconscious mind, are what the Writings call “remains.” We yearn
for heaven in the future because we’ve had an experience of it in the past.
There is also a prophetic element in the hope for heaven, because heaven
is what the Lord, who governs all things, intends for us and is constantly
leading us toward. The Lord’s vision of the future good He desires for us is
called “providence.” Our inner vision of that good is called “hope.”
Hope, therefore, is not just a feeling, but also a mental view of a good and
happy condition that we desire. Some hopes may be irrational and unrealistic,
but heaven is the most real of all human states, and the hope of heaven, formed
by the teachings of the Lord’s Word, is the most rational of all hopes.
Hope of heaven, if it is genuine, is a self-fulfilling prophecy because the
love that inspires that hope is the same love that brings heaven into our lives.
It is the presence of the Lord that makes heaven; therefore, those who love
heaven love the Lord. And all who love the Lord are drawn to Him and live
in His presence.
This prayer from Psalms will not go unanswered: “Let thy mercy, O Lord,
be upon us, according as we hope in Thee.” (Psalm 33:22)
And this promise from the Gospels will not go unfulfilled:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall
be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)
(WEO)
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