While I was home I got to spend time with my sister and her family, watching my nephew Caleb go through his daily routines. When he was hungry his cries punctured the air, growing in intensity until he got what he wanted. His tummy full, his face relaxed in contentment, he could be lulled to sleep or happy just to lay in your lap and watch your face.
We don’t do well when we are hungry, do we? Problems seem bigger, we get irritated faster. I remember in college trying to make a decision with friends on whether to order pizza or brave the weather one snowy night and head over to the cafeteria for supper. What should have been a fairly simple decision was made more complicated by our rumbling tummies. It is hard to let the hunger sit for long before we open up the fridge, rustle in the cupboard, looking for something to satisfy us.
We do the same in our spirits too. We fill our days and our hearts and minds with things that drown out the hunger pains gnawing at our insides. Anything to take away the ache, to make us feel full. But the temporary fixes never satisfy for long, soon we are hungry again for something, anything that will make us happy.
Jesus longs to fill every crevice of our heart with all of His fullness. He is everything we long for, everything we need and He desires to ease our hunger pains with His Goodness, with all of who He is. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better (Ephesians 1:17). As God starts to fill us, the more we get to know Him the more we want to go deeper, to keep on knowing more. Like when we have a friend we think we know pretty well only to discover some super cool secret talent or passion we never would have guessed they have. We have only scratched the surface of understanding who God is, and He wants our hunger for Him to increase to know Him more.
…the fullness of him who fills everything in every way (Ephesians 1:23) I want God to uncover the layers of desire in my heart so that He can pour in all of His glorious riches to those places. I want to stop filling the hungry spots with things that will never satisfy and instead keep running to the One who can fill me with all of Himself, all of his fullness.
A Heart Like His 