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Podcast: Does Your Heart Ache for More? (Amy DiMarcangelo)

May 23, 2022 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

Balancing Our Contentment with Our Longings

In today's episode, Amy DiMarcangelo talks about how our many longings point us to Christ—the only person who understands our every need and offers us eternal joy in himself.

A Hunger for More

A Hunger for More

Amy DiMarcangelo

This book invites readers to feast at the table of grace, where they will find God’s vast glory and his intimate care, his strength made perfect in weakness, and his gifts of joy and comfort to his children—that they “may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

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Check out other Crossway Podcasts including the new podcast Blessed: Conversations on the Book of Revelation with Nancy Guthrie.

Topics Addressed in This Interview:

00:51 - Aching for More

Matt Tully
Amy, thank you so much for joining me today on The Crossway Podcast.

Amy DiMarcangelo
I’m happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Matt Tully
Amy, in your book you talk about your life a little bit. You talk about growing up in the loving, Christian home that you grew up in and were a part of, you talk about your husband and your kids who are healthy, and the solid churches that you’ve been a part of throughout the years. In short, you acknowledge pretty early on that your life has been full of blessing in a lot of ways, and yet you say that in spite of that you often find yourself aching for more. Unpack that ache for us. What is that ache?

Amy DiMarcangelo
I think it’s just a sense of it not being enough, that all these good things that I look around at in my life and I’m so thankful for them, but realizing that it’s not enough to fulfill me. There’s still a longing for something more. That ache is sort of uncomfortable because I want to arrive at a place where I feel like everything is good and I’m fully satisfied. I think I can mix up and ask if maybe this is sinful discontentment.

Matt Tully
That’s what I wanted to ask about. How do you distinguish between this ache for something more that is good and pointing you beyond yourself with a discontent that is just not being grateful.

Amy DiMarcangelo
I think it’s found in what it’s pointing you to. When I’m feeling discontent about a certain life circumstance, what I’m wanting in that time is I want the circumstance to change, or I want to obtain this thing or this goal or my child to change in this way. My hope in those times is in something that is ultimately not going to satisfy me anyway, even if I got what I wanted. But I think when we have this holy discontentment and longing for more, what we find is when we’re seeking the Lord in those things that we at the same time are filled that he can satisfy us, and we keep wanting more. It seems like an oxymoron, that the more satisfied we are in Christ, the more we’re going to long for him, and the more we’ll find that in our different cravings, we’ll be looking to him for those things. We can say, Okay, I don’t need to just hush my longing for awe. I want to be in awe and to be in wonder, but I don’t have to go chasing around every experience. I don’t have to feel like I’m missing out if I can’t go on vacations in certain places. I can find that wonder in the Lord.

Matt Tully
That’s the tricky thing it seems like in all of this is that we have these longings, whether it’s for wonder or for love or for happiness—you hit on all of these different things in the book—and yet the temptation that we all struggle with is that when we feel that desire for love, for example, we then go try to fill that by diving in more with all these things around us that could claim to give us love. How do you navigate that tension, that temptation to pursue those good desires in the wrong way?

Amy DiMarcangelo
I think that’s where we’re just so dependent on the Holy Spirit. Just naturally I want to not need help. I want to be the one who can say that when I’m feeling my emptiness and my need for love, I go to the Lord first. I don’t. I do look for it in my husband being enough for me, or a friend, and that’s always going to leave me disappointed. We were made for community, so it’s not that those relationships are unimportant, but if I’m viewing those as my source of security in a loving relationship, that’s shaky ground.

Matt Tully
Do you feel like you’ve heard other Christians—maybe other Christian women that you are in a relationship with and that you’re talking with about these things—are they articulating the same longing for more that maybe they can’t always fully define?

Amy DiMarcangelo
I think I see it a lot especially in this culture of trying to be enough. That’s something that you would see everywhere. We do have this longing—

Matt Tully
Speak to that a little bit. For those who are men, like myself, or just people who would be curious what you’re talking about—what is this culture of needing to be enough that is so prevalent today?

Amy DiMarcangelo
There is a good sense rooted in it where people are wanting to address the fact that we’re always falling short. We can’t have the Pinterest-perfect life or the Instagram-perfect life, so this message is trying to relieve that burden from people. I think it’s coming from a good heart of wanting to relieve people of that burden of having to change or to be like someone else.

Matt Tully
To be perfect.

Amy DiMarcangelo
I think that part of it is good, but the thing is, we’re not enough. It ends up being its own weight when we realize, Okay, yeah, but I’m not. That’s why that points us to God. I think we’re going to feel that longing in different ways. That’s why the chapters hit so many different things because I think they’re going to resonate with different people depending on how you’re wired. We long to be enough in whatever way, and we can’t be. But the good news is that God is.

07:00 - A Craving for Awe

Matt Tully
The cultural answer to that is, Yeah, you are enough. Don’t worry about it. You don’t measure up, but that actually is okay. That’s not quite the answer. In the book you do explore these ten different cravings that we all have in different ways, cravings that you would argue that only God can ultimately satisfy. You open the book with a particular one that I found interesting (you’ve already referenced it), this idea that we crave wonder and we crave awe. Why start there?

Amy DiMarcangelo
God is just so vast. It felt like the biggest place to start. God is so vast and eternally glorious, and that’s sort of the beginning. He’s transcendent. That’s where it all began. He was this transcendent God who then created man and created an intimate relationship. Because God is who God is and we’re made in his image, we just all are going to have a longing for something that is amazing and glorious and bigger than ourselves. Sometimes we look for it in experiences, we look for it by traveling to all the places. Even just when you think about the types of stories that can really gain traction (Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings), it’s because people long for something magical and wonderful that is beyond their imagination, so we create it ourselves. But that’s because God is eternally glorious. It’s his invitation: Come look for me, because you won’t run out of things to find.

Matt Tully
Isn’t there a famous C. S. Lewis quote along those lines: “If you find your heart longing for something bigger than yourself, it’s evidence that we are made for another world.” It does seem like there is that fundamental desire for being a part of something bigger than we are, or having this ultimate significance that we know we can’t achieve in ourselves. Are there practical ways that you’ve seen that show up in your own life? Has this longing for wonder manifested in certain ways as you look around at your own experience?

Amy DiMarcangelo
I definitely grew up with a love of hiking. My dad is a big hiker and would always bring attention to God’s glory when we would be out on a family vacation and hiking. So I find that always very powerful, to be on a mountain looking around and thinking, Wow! I am so small compared to this mountain. And yet this mountain is so small compared to the God who made it.

Matt Tully
It is amazing because those experiences, even the experience of being in nature and being in awe of something like the Grand Canyon or a mountain, it’s almost like a universal kind of human experience. Do you think that is tied to the fact that God made us?

Amy DiMarcangelo
Yes. I think we can’t help but feel that there’s something greater out there. That’s why people who don’t believe in God still have that sense of awe when they’re in these types of situations—when they’re looking at the newest pictures of space, for example. You can’t help but be struck by it and how magnificent it is. And then I think that within all of us there’s a sense of, There’s someone who made that.

10:42 - A Craving for Grace

Matt Tully
Another thing that you talk about that we often crave is grace. It’s really interesting how you reflected on that. You recount the story from the Bible of the woman who interrupted Jesus and his disciples while they were having dinner. She was a notoriously sinful woman, and she starts weeping at his feet and then wiping his feet with her own hair. It’s this amazing, beautiful, dramatic story, and yet you said that it often left you feeling discouraged. I wonder if you could explain that.

Amy DiMarcangelo
Reading this story, I would feel disappointed because I felt like I could never experience that kind of gratitude and love for Christ that that woman experienced—where I knew I’m a sinner who needed grace and knew I couldn’t be good enough on my own. And yet, because I grew up in a Christian family and was a Christian from a very young age—I remember genuine affection for the Lord—so I sort of felt jealous of people who had really significant stories of change, seeing that death in sin and then life in Christ—that contrast.

Matt Tully
The dramatic conversion.

Amy DiMarcangelo
I just felt like I would never feel that kind of affection because my life is pretty put together. Even in my loving, Christian family, I was the good kid, the middle child, and didn’t get into trouble. I thought it meant that I was going to miss out on knowing Christ the way other people could. Really, that was just related to not understanding just how wicked my own sin was. I knew I was a sinner, I knew I needed grace, but I think I didn’t realize how my respectable sins were just as serious as the ones that we can look on in society and think, Oh wow, that person is a mess.

Matt Tully
Do you feel like you’ve heard that from other Christians who maybe grew up in Christian homes and had relatively stable early childhood years and have never been “rebellious” children or “rebellious” people? Is that a sentiment that you’ve heard form others?

Amy DiMarcangelo
Yeah, I think it is pretty common. One reason I wrote this book was that I think there can often be two groups of people who are addressed: either the person who is far from the Lord, didn’t follow the Lord at all, had a really messy life, and then has a dramatic conversion; or, people who grew up religious, but would say, But I didn’t even understand who God was until I was in college. They have that other story of they were good and thought they were good enough. But what about the people who did have genuine faith, but then are struggling with this sense of, But I don’t understand grace the way other people do, and how do I wrestle with that? So, I think that’s common, and I think some of it is related to the fact that it’s so easy to take grace for granted. Things that we’ve always enjoyed, we’re always tempted to take them for granted.

Matt Tully
As you reflect on your own childhood and the churches you grew up in, is there something about the way that, as churches and Christians, we talk about grace and about sin that maybe leads us to have this hierarchy of sins? If if we say they are sin, those respectable sins just don’t seem like they’re that big of a deal.

Amy DiMarcangelo
I believe that it’s rooted in wanting hearers to know that you can never be too far gone, so there is this focus of, Well, you think you’ve messed up too much; well, you haven’t. God’s grace can still reach you. We shouldn’t stop that focus at all because people do need to hear that. There are people who think they’re too far gone. They’ve messed up too many times. They knew better and still messed up too many times. Surely, God’s grace has expired for them at this point. So, they need to hear that, but I think they’re just also needs to be, at the same time, If you just find yourself persistently struggling with pride and assuming that you’re right—and then really unpacking what that means—What does that arrogance mean?—helping people to go deeper into what this is what that is reflective of.

Matt Tully
It strikes me that we’re so self-deceived so often because we can tend to fall off on either side, where we’re either diminishing the seriousness of our sin and not taking it seriously and not understanding how great God’s grace is for us in that sin; or, on the other side, being so consumed with guilt for our sin and shame and not embracing the forgiveness that we’ve been given. It seems like we kind of go back and forth.

Matt Tully
One thing that you said about this that really stood out to me is this: “The problem is that we focus so much on addressing obvious manifestations of sin”—referring to these respectable sins—“that we train its subtle expressions to remain hidden in our hearts.” Would you say that we’re hiding our sin from ourselves in that regard?

Amy DiMarcangelo
I think we have a genuine desire to repent and change, but we grow to tolerate sin that seems under control. I know that I shouldn’t lash out in anger at my children. I am seeking to grow in not yelling and not raising my voice, but if I get that under control and never yell at my kids again, that doesn’t mean I’ve dealt with my problem of anger. If I grow in self-control in my speech and I don’t talk too critically to people or about people, and yet I still think very critically in my heart, I haven’t dealt with the root issue. We tend to try to address the outward behavior, not just in a hypocritical effort to fool people, but it’s just that it’s something more tangible. That feels like growth. In a sense it is growth of self-control, but we can then be too content with, Okay, I tamed it, but not realizing that sin can’t actually be tamed. So, we have to continue crucifying it, even as it’s in our heart. Hooray! I will never yell again!—but there’s still anger in my heart that I need to put to death every day.

17:56 - A Craving for Truth

Matt Tully
If we’re yelling at our kids or saying harsh things to them, it’s that manifestation that we can’t excuse and can’t ignore because it’s just right there in public, and yet those inner things are easier for us to hide and keep under wraps because no one can see them. Another thing that you talk about craving is truth. We live in a world where truth is an important concept that people debate—What is truth? Who has truth? How do we know it? And yet in our increasingly secularized context, you argue that the lure of compromise is ever present. What do you mean by that?

Amy DiMarcangelo
All of us are tempted to compromise, and I think we’re all tempted in different ways. Some of us are analytical thinkers, and we’re tempted to compromise because we want to use logic to get some of the hard doctrines in the Bible to fit into how we can understand them. You may see people go into questions and doubts—and we should be asking questions, and we should be engaging those questions. Our doubts are okay to admit and it’s important that we talk through those things. But we also need to ask ourselves, Are all my questions related to the fact that I really want to know the answer and that I want to discover what God’s truth is? Or is it that I’m just going to keep asking these questions until I get an answer that I feel I want to get*.

Matt Tully
We live in a time when there’s this new buzz word that’s constantly being trotted out—this idea of deconstruction. You emphasized that it’s important that we ask those questions and be honest about those questions. Do you think that’s something that the evangelical church maybe hasn’t done very well in the past?

Amy DiMarcangelo
Probably so much of that depends on the context. I can’t give a universal answer for how different churches engage that. I definitely felt growing up that I was allowed to ask questions. But at the same time, I can think of friends who would ask questions and then I would have this inner panic of, Oh my gosh! What does this mean about what they’re believing about the Lord? It’s not so much that we’re wanting to be harsh and control people from asking questions. Culturally, if people don’t feel welcomed with their questions, some of it is just rooted in we’re concerned for people, and we’re struggling with our own fears of, Oh, if they ask that, is this going to unravel X, Y, or Z for them? We need to have more confidence in the Lord that as people ask questions, as we engage doubts, as the church opens up the floor and models what it means to press into the Lord through that, we don’t need to be afraid. God’s word is going to stand up to questions and scrutiny, and it always does. No one is asking new questions. These have been around ever since the beginning of the church. We don’t need to panic.

Matt Tully
You’ve already explained that you grew up in a Christian home and had a relatively stable home life and great churches that you were involved with. Even with all of that, have there ever been seasons in your life where you had doubts and struggled with wondering, Is what I was taught all these years correct?

Amy DiMarcangelo
I’ve definitely gone through periods of struggle, and usually it’s regarding God’s sovereignty and evil in the world, so pretty common one there.

Matt Tully
Has it come back multiple times?

Amy DiMarcangelo
Yes. I would say it’s something I can even routinely still struggle with. It’s a routine battle for me. It usually comes up when I’m being really engaged with seeing suffering and evil in the world. I think one of the times that was most significant for me where I felt probably the most in a faith crisis was in planning an event for my church. It was a benefit concert for children who have been trafficked, so just really going deep into that reality was really hard. It’s easy for me to trust God’s sovereignty when I think of my life. Even with the pain that is involved, I can look at it and really know I can see God working evil for good. But when I’m looking at children who have been trafficked, that’s a lot harder to see and trust God’s sovereignty in that. So, I definitely routinely can struggle with that.

Matt Tully
What were the things that other Christians did that were helpful for you in the midst of that?

Amy DiMarcangelo
One thing would definitely be answering, I don’t really know—not trying to give a reason. Certainly, with evil and sovereignty, I think that has to be one of our answers—I don’t know why God allows these things to happen—and not trying to form an answer, because people will see through. Answers that we’re trying to just construct to soothe their fears, people just see through that.

Matt Tully
We all do that so often.

Amy DiMarcangelo
Again, it comes from a good heart of wanting to help people, but it’s just not going to hold up. So, I think having an answer like, I don’t know. But I do know God is good. I don’t know why God is allowing this, but I do know he brings justice. He promises justice, and evil will not go unpunished. Probably the most helpful thing for me through those times is I don’t know the answers to these questions, but people who would remind me of who God is. What do I know? I know who God is, and I know these things about him. Even though I don’t know these answers, I can trust and rest in who he is.

24:30 - Does God Owe Me?

Matt Tully
One of the things you draw out related to this idea of craving truth and believing the right things relates to the way that we sometimes, as Christians, can think about how our lives should unfold if we do believe those things. You write, “Perhaps we believe that if we parent a particular way, it guarantees our children won’t rebel. Or if we walk in purity, we will never endure sexual hurt in marriage. Or if we memorize enough Scripture, we won’t struggle with depression.” Can you resonate with those feelings of, If I do things the right way, if I think the right way, and hold the right doctrines, things are supposed to work out a certain way for me?

Amy DiMarcangelo
I don’t know if this is a more Western or American thing, but I hate the prosperity gospel. I have friends who were told, If your mom had had faith, she wouldn’t have died of cancer. It’s so damaging. It’s so wicked.

Matt Tully
And that wasn’t from a prosperity preacher?

Amy DiMarcangelo
No, it was in a church—no big names that we would know. So, on that end, those things are more obvious. We can hate those things, but I think there are ways where we still internalize and take as promises things that aren’t promises, especially where it’s related to the wisdom literature. If we read the proverbs as promises, then we’re going to be disappointed sometimes. Proverbs are wisdom: “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he shall not depart from it.” What that’s communicating to us is that, as parents, we’re responsible to be training our children and we shouldn’t take for granted that they’re going to make wise decisions or follow the Lord. But that’s not a promise that, Hey, if you’re a good parent, your kids aren’t going to rebel. They’re all going to follow the Lord. I think we can unintentionally believe that if I do this, God will do this.

Matt Tully
The tricky thing, it seems to me at least, is that sometimes—most of the time—there are these good things that God does call us to do, but we then can subtly (and I’ve found in my own heart at least, and in ways I don’t even recognize until maybe after the fact) be thinking, Okay, now I did this, so now God sort of owes me a certain kind of result.

Amy DiMarcangelo
Yes, for sure. I definitely have been in that, I did everything right, God. Why is this what happened? That’s where we need to confess that God does not owe us anything. If we’re starting to come to him with these demands, then we’re like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son. The older brother said, I did things right. Where’s my party? But we weren’t doing it for the Lord. If we’re upset when we dont’ get the result we wanted from our obedience, then our obedience wasn’t really rooted in love for the Lord to begin with.

27:43 - A Craving for Comfort

Matt Tully
A last thing that you talk about that we crave, and it ties back actually to something you said a few minutes ago, is the idea of craving comfort, especially comfort in the face of suffering—the suffering that we all experience. But again, your perspective has kind of shifted a little bit on this when it comes to this idea of “first-world suffering” that is what is often the suffering that most of us here in the US will experience in our lives. You write that there was a time when you “chalked most pain up to a problem in perspective.” You kind of diminished the suffering that you have experienced and that others maybe around you have experienced. Unpack that for us a little bit.

Amy DiMarcangelo
I have been really involved and passionate about care for orphans in other countries for as long as I can remember, and, as I shared earlier, the victims of human trafficking. When you’re engaging things like that, it’s very easy to have a self-righteous view towards other types of suffering. Like, That’s not bad enough. Get over it. That sounds horrible because it is horrible, but I think I really, after spending time in India and spending time learning about different things (I’m also involved with refugees), I can have a view that unless your suffering looks like this, it’s really not that bad. That has shifted. I think God has used my own suffering—

Matt Tully
I was going to ask about that. Would that view of diminishing the significance of suffering have applied to your own suffering and your own life?

Amy DiMarcangelo
It would have. I’m still tempted to be this way. I’ve had some pretty significant struggles with depression over the last couple of years, and I can still look at it and be like, What is my problem? My life is so good. I have no right to suffer, to struggle with depression, whereas this person does. Look at their life! They’re the person who should be struggling, not me. Any of our suffering, whether it’s the result of our own sin (because sometimes we’re suffering because of our own choices) or the result of someone else’s sin against us or just life in a fallen world and broken bodies, all of our suffering is meant to point us to Christ. He wants to be our comforter. He’s never looking at someone like, Hey, I don’t have time for you because this person over here has it way worse. God is an infinite source of comfort. He wants us to come to him the same way that when a little kid scrapes their knee, we’re not saying, Get over it. Your leg isn’t broken. No! We go and comfort that kid who scraped their knee. That’s how God is with us and that’s his heart towards us. He’s very tender towards us.

Matt Tully
With this depression that you struggled with, do you find that when you are kind of diminishing it and thinking, This isn’t so bad. What’s my problem, is that preventing you from going to God like you should?

Amy DiMarcangelo
Yes. Absolutely. I feel like who am I? It gets into just pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and self-sufficient faith. It definitely turns me from seeking the Lord when I’m in that frame of mind.

Matt Tully
Yeah. It seems like that bootstrap faith is so common. You’ve been around the world visiting with Christians in other parts of the world. Is that as common in other places, or is there something about our American context that maybe tempts us towards that more?

Amy DiMarcangelo
I think it does seem to be in the DNA of Americans. I think it’s also common in more prosperous places because we don’t feel our need. It’s not as in your face. We’re all very, very needy beings. We all desperately need God. But someone who doesn’t know where their next meal is going to come from feels that acutely, whereas people like us—middle class America—it feels like we should be able to figure this out on our own, because we’re used to living self-sufficient lives. We can assume that in spiritual ways too.

32:19 - Is My Suffering Legitimate?

Matt Tully
Speak to the person listening right now who maybe is experiencing what you said you have experienced, this idea of suffering. It could be depression, the loss of someone close to them, or maybe even uncertainty about the future and different things that they may be facing. Maybe they are feeling a little bit of that guilt about that suffering, or they wonder, Is this really something that I am allowed to be sad about or struggle with? What would you say to that person?

Amy DiMarcangelo
Whatever is going on in your life, God wants to use it to bring you to him. He wants to comfort you. He’s never ever in a place that’s like, Leave me alone. God delights in comforting his children. He has compassion for his children. Whether you’re struggling with guilt because it is your own fault—it’s because of reckless choices you’ve made—God has grace. How often were the Israelites suffering because of their own unbelief? And yet God comforted them and provided for them. That’s just the nature of God. He wants to comfort his people. When we try to have a stiff upper lip and pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, we’re robbing God of the opportunity to be near to us and to comfort us as our Father.

Matt Tully
What does it look like to be a good friend to someone who is struggling?

Amy DiMarcangelo
That’s a great question. I think we all have to fight our urge to fix it. That’s probably pretty natural to most of us where we want to just fix someone’s problem. We need to just grow in lament and grow in being comfortable with there not being answers or there not being solutions, and just weeping with those who weep. There really is a mystery in that that is overlooked. We want to say, I want to end your pain as quickly as possible. What can I do? How can I fix it? There’s a role for that because there might be things that we can do to help someone, so it’s not that there’s no practical outworking of it. But just starting in a place of just sharing in someone’s burden, sharing in their sorrow. That always means so much to me when I know someone is sad with me. It shows that they care for me, and I want to grow in being that type of friend to other people instead of coming in with all of my solutions for them.

34:59 - A Craving for Community

Matt Tully
It seems like it connects so well to another thing you talk about in the book, this craving for community that we all have. Have you found that suffering, and especially sharing that suffering with another Christian, has bound you together with that person or with those people in uniquely powerful ways?

Amy DiMarcangelo
Absolutely. For example, going through a miscarriage several years ago brought a unique connection with people I wounldn’t have usually connected with. As other women in my church were able to say, Hey, I experienced that too, there is just something that is really comforting about that. You don’t have to explain things to them. More recently, my struggles with depression. Having a friend I could go and say, Let me tell you everything I’m thinking right now and sort of trust her to both not panic and get into fix it mode, but to also know that I didn’t have to over explain myself because she understood because I knew she suffered with it and she was open in sharing about that. So, I think it just builds this sense of, We’re in this together and you’re helping shoulder this for me. When we’re suffering together with other believers, they’re able to remind us of truth that they have experienced if they’ve been going through something longer than we have, or are just encountering God in different ways than we are. When they speak truth to us, it’s comforting to know it’s coming from a place of their own experience. When we speak truth to others, it’s speaks to our own hearts. There have been so many times that I have been in a bad place, and yet as another friend is sharing a struggle and I’m speaking truth to her and reminding her of who God is and how he’s for her, that ends up speaking to my own heart when I was already struggling to believe it myself.

36:57 - What to Do If You Feel Discontent

Matt Tully
As a final question, I wonder if there is someone listening right now who feels this discontent in their life, and sometimes I think it can be hard to know exactly where that’s coming from or what that’s even about. They just feel this general sense of not being satisfied. What practical advice would you give to someone to start diagnosing what’s going on there. Is this a good discontent that should push me towards God? Or is this something that really isn’t healthy and it’s good for me? What practical advice—what next steps—would you offer that person?

Amy DiMarcangelo
I would ask that person to look at their life and consider what they may still be trying to fill themselves in right now. If they’re feeling that discontentment, right now are you really preoccupied with pursuing a job promotion? Are you in a relationship that you’re putting too much of a burden on and expecting too much of that person? Asking them (because we won’t know) what is preoccupying your thoughts and preoccupying your time? That might be an indicator of where you’re trying to be filled and where you’re trying to find satisfaction and why it’s falling short. Then, based on what that answer is, then I would ask them, How can you see God in this? The answer might not be to not go for the job promotion. It’s just asking how you can engage with God through that and remember that your whole life is to be lived for his glory. So, how do you glorify God in the way you try to work hard at your job?

Matt Tully
What role might other Christians play in helping us to diagnose these desires?

Amy DiMarcangelo
Asking lots of good questions. I know I can come in with assumptions of why someone is doing something, when the reality is that two different people could be showing some of the same bad fruit, but it’s for different reasons. Some people are operating in a place of pain. For another person it might be a place of laziness or bitterness. I think we need to ask questions to seek to understand what’s at the root of what this person is seeking, and why are they seeking it. Why are they so insecure in love? Did they endure abuse as a child? What’s deeper there? As we ask questions, it helps them engage as well. I think some of the best counseling I’ve ever received was one of my pastors who is just really good with asking questions and making me think in ways that I wouldn’t have thought on my own. But if he came with assumptions, it probably wouldn’t have been helpful. I would have been more tempted to be defensive. But with his questions, it helped draw out the root of what was going on and why I was struggling in the ways that I was.

Matt Tully
Amy, thank you so much for taking the time today to help each of us think a little bit about these desires, these longings that we all have in different ways that ultimately, as you say, is meant to push us towards God.

Amy DiMarcangelo
Thanks for having me.

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Jim Hamilton discusses what to do when you hate your job, offering encouragement for those frustrated in their work and explaining the difference between a job and a vocation.

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