From soul, to heart, to head

At night, I long for you with my whole being; my spirit within me watches for you. When your judgments are at work in the earth, those living in the world learn righteousness. Isaiah 26:9

There's a large minefield of whammo in that couple of sentences.

1) Longing for Him with our WHOLE being.
2) Our spirit within watching for Him.
3) Judgments at work in the earth
4) The notion of LEARNING righteousness.

Let me ask a serious question: Are you longing for Him with everything you have? I must admit, I seriously doubt that I am. Oh, I want to. I wish to. At times I pray to.

But the evidence that I'm doing everything I can to long for Him is not there. I still sin, make mistakes, fall. Oh, not nearly as much as I once did. But I can't proclaim a Gospel that says I am not fully capable of falling apart again.

I suspect I know persons who can long for Him with their whole being. I suspect those folks are out there. I want to be like them. Perhaps one day.

The idea that intrigues me the most here is that my spirit is watching for him.

I think I'm that way. I believe that inside me, that spirit (little s) is watching for Him. His return. His being here with me, not for me. Perhaps that is the longing that the previous phrase was talking about. I must say that I would be far better at all this if He would just give me a push. A shove. A nudge, even.

Then His Spirit lets me know He has done so.

It's not his judgments, as awesome and fearful as they might be, that guide me into righteousness, I fear. It is my absolute desire not to disappoint Him. Cause Him pain. Cause Him tears about my behavior, or my lack of trust, respect and flat out faith.

Am I learning righteousness? In absolute truthfulness, I don't believe that I am. If it was about learning righteousness, I suspect most who grew up in church and then left it as soon as college came around would know far more than enough to be righteousness.

No, I believe it all comes back to that inner spirit. Inside I know I'm not far enough along this walk. Outside I clean up good. Inside, not so much.

But I'm progressing, as many I see are. How? We long for it. We won't settle for anything else.

In the end, as Isaiah notes, that's a learning process. From soul to heart to head, not head to heart to soul. That's just the way it goes, at least in my experience.