I am thankful today to serve an awesome God! He is good!
Our family is all participating in a time of fasting together right now. (I know that Christ instructed us to fast in secret...but since this blog is pretty much "in secret" itself, I should be fine!! :) ) I believe that it is during these times that we realize the truth of this verse: "Man does not live by bread alone, but by ever word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." My daily prayer is that the Lord would make me hungry for Him...beyond hungry...starving! ravenous! as I wrote about in my last post. As I give up physical food for my body, I am seeing how precious His Word is to my soul.
It is amazing to me how ridiculously important physical food is to my physical body, and how much I miss food when I'm not eating...and yet how there have been so many times in the past when I could easily go without spiritual food for my spiritual body, and never even think to miss it. I think that most of us as Christians (myself included many times) feast ourselves daily on food and drink for our bodies, and breeze right over the absolute necessity of doing the same for our souls.
"As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby." ~ 1 Pet 2:2
"...My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is" ~ Ps 63:1
"As the (deer) panteth for the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God..." ~ Ps 42:1-2
How did David get to the point that he longed with everything in him for the Living God? I don't know. I do know that for myself, the more I pursue God, the more I call upon Him to change my heart and my passions, the more time I spend with Him, the hungrier I get.
"Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." Mat 5:6
"...open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." ~ Ps 81:10
I used to wonder why my times in the Word weren't fulfilling to me. Why I wasn't hearing anything through those times, or feeling satisfied afterward. Now I am realizing...for all those years, I just barely opened my mouth a crack!! 20 or 30 minutes of light Bible reading and half-hearted praying isn't going to cut it. That's like grabbing a cracker and a handful of raisins in the morning, and expecting that to last us through the whole day.
Open your mouth wide.
And then He will fill it.
How wide am I willing to open it? How much am I willing to pursue Him, to rest at His feet and listen for His voice? This is how much He will fill me.
I love my Lord because He never leaves a truly hungry soul empty. He feeds me.
No comments:
Post a Comment