“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952)

How would you describe a longing or a desire? Not just any desire, but a deep yearning. A type of yearning that one has for a glass of ice cold water after a long hike in the desert. But still a desire that is more than carnal, that comes from the soul. Like how a baby yearns for its mother. Do you have a good word that describes this?

The Germans do, and the word is Sehnsucht. It is a compound word formed from the verb sehnen to yearn, and the word Sucht, which means craving or addiction. Though, translating it as literally as possible is not the best way to understand it. In its most simplified form, Sehnsucht is a deep yearning or longing. But yearning for what? One can yearn for many different things. People yearn for love, belonging, affection, stability, truth, etc. What makes Sehnsucht such a meaningful word is that it can be used in many situations to describe different types of yearning.

Mankind yearns for a home and for a place where everything is the way it should be. The issue is, the perfect place has never existed, does not exist, and will never exist. At least not this side of eternity. Fortunately the Welsh already have the world hiraeth which describes this longing for home. Since being kicked out of the garden, man has never really been at home. Man has still done pretty well, and comfortable homes, villages, towns, and nations have all developed, but they are not perfect. Even someone who is content in their location will have to admit some shortcoming. Nowhere is perfect, and this yearning for a place that is just that little bit better can be addictive. If one comes from a place with many shortcomings, this is even more understandable. But even those from nice homes experience this hiraeth, even if it is just for their home from childhood.

Related to the longing of place is a longing for how things could be or how things could have been. Sehnsucht applies here as well. As one gets older, there are always thoughts if not regrets about what one could have done. There can often be a desire to go back and to have made a different decision. These could be more serious themes like having studied something else, or having worked for a different company. Or it could be a little more trivial, like wondering who else could have been taken to prom. The yearning in this situation is maybe less about regret itself, but rather a curiosity in how these decisions could have led to completely different outcomes in the present day. This yearning for knowledge can be had for the future as well as the past.

One can have Sehnsucht for the future and to receive opportunities. There is a classic story trope that appears over and over again. Often there is a person who has worked for many years, lived in the same place for years, and has had the same routine forever. Something big happens to disrupt this and the person could either embrace this call to adventure and become a hero, or they could go back to their old mundane life. This tension is then what makes the story intriguing and worth watching. The yearning for more or even the yearning to have the opportunity to go on an adventure is about as human as anything can be. How many of man’s stories and legends revolve around the desire to go forth and embrace whatever providence has destined to send one’s way?

Sehnsucht for adventure might appeal to the office worker or to the teenager, people who feel trapped or stuck. For others, they might have Sehnsucht for the exact opposite: stability. For those in chaotic seasons of life or with an unclear calling, it may be stability and to be living in an uneventful situation. As ever, stability and to live a “normal” and “boring” life is not a bad thing. It just needs to happen at the right time, whatever that means. Adventure and chaos is great, but the hero would burn out very quickly if that was their whole life. The other way around, if one’s life was just mundane and typical would also not be right. Fate may have been calling the hero to greatness, but the calls were ignored and what could have been never was.

The desire for other people is often one of the deepest types of Sehnsucht that one can have. Not necessarily in the romantic sense, but one can have a desire to meet with someone else one last time, or also just another time. One could have Sehnsucht for an old friend, a family member, or for someone who has died and can not be met with again. Within this longing there is a cup of nostalgia, an ounce of love, dashes of belonging, and a pinch of sadness. Goodbyes are never easy, but maybe the tears are proof of the real connection that was in the relationship.

All of these examples show that humans have a desire for the things in life that are missing. Might Sehnsucht just be the desire for whatever it is that is currently lacking? Maybe. This is a possibility, and not an unreasonable theory. This yearning and desire can not be divorced from nostalgia or with the thought of what could be. The term was also incredibly popular during the Romantic Era, forever connecting it to Romanticism, with all of the good and that bad that this era brings with it. Does someone’s Sehnsucht have to be obtainable? No. Does someone’s Sehnsucht have to be unobtainable? Again, no. If one has a deep longing for something that is far off, it does not have to mean that the desired thing could never be obtained. Though, once that yearning is satisfied, maybe another will just come along to replace it.

The whole idea of Sehnsucht shows that longing is something particularly human and can manifest itself on many different levels. But what about the most important level of all? Man has a hole in his heart that has been there since this fall. Mankind has a longing for the transcendent and a longing for God. Man was made in God’s image, but man is not yet done being sanctified and perfected. It takes divine intervention and that work of the Holy Spirit for man to finally be made completely whole.

Maybe all religions are trying to accommodate the Sehnsucht after purpose, truth, and the heavens. Though without the true and living God, people notice that there is something spiritually missing from their lives. Only Jesus can make a person whole in body and spirit. What if this was the whole purpose of longing? Maybe longing makes one contemplate the past, go on more adventures, and hangout with friends more often. As long as a longing is for something good, then it can inspire and lead to fulfillment.

Sehnsucht is such a beautiful word. It combines longing, yearning, nostalgia, and desire with the ideas of incompleteness, hope, and transcendence. Humanity is aware that things are not as they could be or how they should be. Every person will deal with yearning at different stages or life and for different things. Jesus is the only one who can fulfill the deepest desire, without Him the soul will wander for an eternity, always hungry and thirsty. But still, what if the fun of yearning is in the journey and not the destination? Is the feeling of something being just out of reach not addictive? Maybe having a goal is more important than achieving it.

“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?” – Psalm 42:1-2 (ESV)