Sitting outside the new coffee place in town, enjoying the Sunday afternoon breeze - an old familiar song came on the speaker. It was Counting Crows famous “Mr. Jones and Me” song, “La la la la la la yeah” the song began. I had been sitting inside, where everyone, including the workers, had been staring agape at the teenage couple outside by the fountain that were embarrassingly making out for all to see. Many people were laughing, hard not to I guess, but it made me think about what I’ve heard taught about the “Seven Longings of the Human Heart“.

These kids were simply trying to fulfill these longings, afar off from actually doing so, and in their giddy foolishness ignored the world around them as they plunged head-long (literally) after their longings. I wanted to go interrupt them, not to tell them to leave, but to kindly remark that their love for each other would never ultimately satisfy. To point them to the love of Jesus, the truest, purest love man could ever know, not only as the foundation and fulfillment of their own hearts’ longings, but for the purer enjoyment of their own human relationship with each other. But, unfortunately or not, I didn’t. I went outside.

And the Counting Crows front-man began to howl out the loud-speaker. As the familiar tune played, I realized - this is the PERFECT song to articulate the Seven Longings of the Human Heart! Seriously, check out these lyrics below:

1. Longing for Beauty. “We all want something beautiful, man I wish I was beautiful.”

2. Longing to be Fascinated. “Come dance this silence down through the morning! Cut Maria! Show me some of them Spanish dances and pass me the bottle, Mr. Jones!”

3. Longing to be Great. “I want to be a lion. Yeah! Everybody wants to pass as cats, we all want to be big big stars - but we don’t know why and we don’t know how…”

4. Longing to have Intimacy. “Yeah, we stare at the beautiful women. She’s looking at you, man, theres’ got to be somebody for me!”

5. Longing to be Enjoyed. “When I look at the television I wanna see me, staring right back at me!!”

6. Longing to be Whole-Hearted. “I want to be Bob Dylan….I will paint my picture, blue and red, and black and gray. All of the beautiful colors are very very meaningful…if I knew Picasso, I’d buy myself a gray guitar and play!

7. Longing to make a Lasting Impact. “Mr. Jones and me look into the future…where everybody loves me, I will never be lonely….I’m going to be just about as happy as I can be!”

So here’s to you - crows that count! You have counted for us very clearly the seven longings in each and every human heart. Here’s to finding your longings in that which satisfies ultimately, Jesus the Christ.