What are you reaching for?

This song has been running through my head today. It is by Carolyn Arends. I haven't listened to it in years, but I have always loved it.

REACHING

There’s a time I can recall
Four years old and three feet tall
Trying to touch the stars and the cookie jar
And both were out of reach
And later on in my high school
It seemed to me a little cruel
How the right words to say always seemed to stay
Just out of reach
Well I should not have thought it strange
That growing causes growing pains
‘Cause the more we learn the more we know
We don’t know anything
But still it seems a tragic fate
Living with this quiet ache
The constant strain for what remains
Just out of reach

Chorus
We are reaching for the future
We are reaching for the past
And no matter what we have we reach for more
We are desperate to discover
What is just beyond our grasp
But maybe that’s what heaven is for

There are times I can’t forget
Dressed up in my Sunday best
Trying not to squirm and to maybe learn
A bit of what the preacher preached
And later lying in the dark
I felt a stirring in my heart
And though I longed to see what could not be seen
I still believed
I guess I shouldn't think it odd
Until we see the face of God
The yearning deep within us tells us
There’s more to come
So when we taste of the divine
It leaves us hungry every time
For one more taste of what awaits
When heaven’s gates are reached

I guess it kind of highlights the theme of last nights scrapbook page and today's devotional.

This page is pictures of Sage and Regan at Mima and Papa's 60th anniversary party. Regan spent the day playing 'me too!' with her older cousins, while Sage had her own version, wanting to be with big sissy.

It seems true of all kids, that they are always 'reaching' or yearning to grow up and be like the big kids. We try so desperately to keep them young and encourage them to enjoy it while it lasts, but I guess it is a fight against natural longings.

(Regan loves her sissy though, and came back to offer her some amusement at the window.)






Todays devotional (from Dee Brestin -A Woman of Contentment), focused on Solomon's reaching or yearning for earthly things. First he set his eyes on wisdom, then folly, then on material possessions. In the end, he found that 'In all the whole long list of my accomplishments, not one appeared that gave my life beneath the sun the slightest bit of lasting meaning' (T.M. Moore's paraphrase of Ecclesiastes 2:20.

Longing for things we do not have can be good or bad, depending on where we set our sights. If we take our eyes off Christ, like Solomon, we see and long for earthly things that have no value. If we keep our eyes on Him, we will be "left hungry every time For one more taste of what awaits When heaven’s gates are reached". We will long for the things God wants for us.

So, what are you longing for today, the cookies or the stars? The earthly or the Godly?
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