There are many promises in the Bible addressed to those who are spiritually hungry and thirsty.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6). He also said, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink” (John 7:37).

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In the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah cried out, “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost” (Isaiah 55:1). And the psalmist proclaimed that God “satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things” (Psalm 107:9).

But are we hungry and thirsty for Him – really and truly?

Test Thyself

I have sometimes given ministry school students a test to evaluate their level of love and hunger for God Word. It’s a test I have used on myself, and I’ve found it to be quite revealing.

It goes like this. Get alone with your Bible, without distraction. If you can get on your knees as you read, better still. Then read through Psalm 119 out loud – it’s by far the longest chapter in the Bible, and it extols the Word of God – and see if you feel like a hypocrite.

I confess that sometimes I have felt like a hypocrite when I have repeated words like these out loud (Psalm 119:14, 20, 54, 72): “I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.” Really?

And, “My soul is consumed with longing for your laws at all times.” Is it?

And, “Your decrees are the theme of my song wherever I lodge.” Honestly?

And, “The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold.” Truly?

Is this really how we live and feel? Are these really our priorities?

Meditating

It’s the same with spiritual hunger. It’s one thing to recite the verses or to sing the songs. It’s another thing to mean it and experience it. Are we really and truly hungry?

Psalm 63 is one of my favorite psalms, beginning with these words:

God, You are my God; I search for You, my soul thirsts for You, my body yearns for You, as a parched and thirsty land that has no water. (Psalm 63:1-2 [2-3 in Hebrew])

I memorized those verses (and the ones following) in Hebrew many years ago, often reciting them to the Lord in prayer.

Recently, I have been putting the emphasis on the words “for You,” as to say, “God, I’m hungering and thirsting for You Yourself – to know You better, to draw closer to You, to understand You, to meet with You – and not just hungering to see You move and touch lives.”

Of course, I also pray that He will work through me and through others and will dramatically touch and change millions of lives. But more than that, I want to know Him and commune with Him in a deeper way than ever before.

Going Deep

This past weekend, though, as I recited those words to the Lord in prayer, I had to make a confession. I am not hungering and thirsting for Him like parched land hungers and thirsts for rain.

I am serious. I am committed. But I am not desperate. There is a deeper hunger!

Read these words carefully from Psalm 42:1-2:

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

Then, listen to Charles Spurgeon who wrote this on v. 1:

As after a long drought the poor fainting hind longs for the streams, or rather as the hunted hart instinctively seeks after the river to lave its smoking flanks and to escape the dogs, even so my weary, persecuted soul pants after the Lord my God. Debarred from public worship, David was heartsick. Ease he did not seek, honour he did not covet, but the enjoyment of communion with God was an urgent need of his soul; he viewed it not merely as the sweetest of all luxuries, but as an absolute necessity, like water to a stag. Like the parched traveller in the wilderness, whose skin bottle is empty, and who finds the wells dry, he must drink or die — he must have his God or faint. His soul, his very self, his deepest life, was insatiable for a sense of the divine presence.

As the hart brays so his soul prays. Give him his God and he is as content as the poor deer which at length slakes its thirst and is perfectly happy; but deny him his Lord, and his heart heaves, his bosom palpitates, his whole frame is convulsed, like one who gasps for breath, or pants with long running.

Dear reader, dost thou know what this is, by personally having felt the same? It is a sweet bitterness. The next best thing to living in the light of the Lord’s love is to be unhappy till we have it, and to pant hourly after it — hourly, did I say? thirst is a perpetual appetite, and not to be forgotten, and even thus continual is the heart’s longing after God. When it is as natural for us to long for God as for an animal to thirst, it is well with our souls, however painful our feelings. We may learn from this verse that the eagerness of our desires may be pleaded with God, and the more so, because there are special promises for the importunate and fervent.

These words are so rich we should read them once again. How we need this “perpetual appetite”!

May God grant us a deeper hunger for Him. If we ask for it earnestly, confessing our weakness and shallowness but refusing to quit until He answers us, He will take us deeper.

“Make us hungry, Lord!”

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This article was originally published at The Stream. Photo Credit: Tima Miroshnichenko/Pexels.