Hunger and Thirst

"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness."

"I opened my mouth and panted, for I longed for Thy Commandments."

"Thy Words were found, and I did eat them, and Thy Word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart."

"As the hart panteth for the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee."


Should I keep going?


"O God, Thou art my God, early will I seek Thee. My soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is."

"My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God."

"The desire of our soul is to Thy name and to the remembrance of Thee. With my soul have I desired Thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek Thee early:"


I could keep going on, but I think you understand. At least, I hope you do. O my friends, in a sense I hesitate to post this for fear of being redundant (a majority of my posts already deal with this topic), but I have to. I cannot write about anything else.

Knowing Christ. "...all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord..." All things. Loss. For Christ. Think about those words individually. Think about the passion that must grip your very soul before you can say those words truly with Paul. All things. Loss. So that I may know Christ. How can we not hunger and thirst after this? Two answers spring with equal speed to my thoughts: 1. Easily. 2. We cannot. Diametrically opposed answers. (Should this surprise me? No, not really.) The first answer would not have leaped to my mind so quickly three months ago. Why? Well, to my shame, I had begun to unwittingly walk in spiritual arrogance. It had been so long since the Lord had permitted me to go through a lengthy spiritually dry time, that I had begun to think that I sought the Lord, that I hungered and thirsted of my own volition. Ah, my foolishness! Ah, my pride! And so the Lord allowed me to go through the last two and a half months fighting for spiritual life in a heart that had suddenly gone cold and apathetic. My desire for the Word evaporated--there was none left. My joy in prayer diminished. My fellowship with my beloved Lord, became formal and/or forced. Just writing this down sends cold fingers of sorrow and dread around my heart. In myself, I cared less about spiritual things, but that tiny part of my heart would not be silent. That tiny part of my soul "still desired Him in the night." That part still had a desire to His name. That is why I was miserable. Miserable, yes; hungering and thirsting, no. And powerless to do so until my Lord did again implant that within me. And so I learned to do again what I had not done for several years: to seek without wanting to seek, to dig though I was finding no treasure, to show my Lord by my actions as well as my words that in the deepest part of me, I cannot live without Him. Until He rebuked and renewed and restored my soul two weeks ago. And the joy of restored fellowship? Indescribable. So, yes, it would be only too easy to not seek. But I still contest, how can we not seek? Knowing Christ. Everything in life comes down to that. Quote from Tozer: "God desires and is pleased to communicate with us through the avenues of our mids, our wills, and our emotions. The continuous and unembarrassed interchange of love and thought between God and the souls of redeemed men and women is the throbbing heart of the New Testament." May we go on to know Him--to truly know Him as He can be known. O be satisfied with nothing less! Know Christ! Hunger and thirst for Him. And you will be filled. He has promised it.