Hunger For God

So it's been a couple of weeks since I got that word from the Lord and the vision via text. I have been trying to press in ... but really haven't gotten very far. I have been reading John 6 A LOT. I have read up on manna. I have continued reading Ezekiel. I have read some other books I had just in hopes that something would pop out somewhere and be the help I need.... but nothing did.

I was emailing with a friend and she said she had a dream about me and in the dream I was confused and striving ... but that I was supposed to just rest and wait on the Lord. ugh. more waiting. Waiting is the worst because I never know how much to do and not do. I want to be open and pursuing but somehow keep my inward posture from shaking my fist at God, and running after my own answers. I seem to have a hard time striking the right balance.

So I am trying to calmly wait and not move into doubt ... so while I was waiting - I was googling the other day and typed in 'hunger for God'. Low and behold, John Piper has a book by that very title!! And guess what it's about... fasting!! So I ordered a copy and started reading it over the weekend. It's ridiculous ... I swear it could be written just for me - right now!

quotes:


The strongest, most mature christians I have ever met are the hungriest for God. It might seem that those who eat most would be least hungry. But that is not the way it works with an inexhaustible fountain, and an infinite feast, and a glorious Lord. When you take your stand on the finished work of God in Christ, and begin to drink from the River of Life and eat the Bread of Heaven, and know that you have found the end of all your longings, YOU ONLY GET HUNGRIER FOR GOD.

"The greatest adversary of love to God is not His enemies but His gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simplest pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and most incurable."

These pleasures start as innocent delights in food, and reading, and resting and playing, but then become ends in themselves and choke off spiritual hunger for God. Paul buffets his body to put himself to the test. Does he hunger for God? Is his faith real? Or is he becoming the slave of comfort and bodily pleasures? You can hear the passion of his heart in 1 Corinthians 6:12 "I will not be dominated by anything." This is not the pride of stoic self-exaltation. It is the passionate resolve to resist ANYTHING  that lures the heart away from an all controlling satisfaction in God.

Powerful.

This is what kept me from eating everything I was tempted to eat tonight. I want Jesus more, I really do.  I want to end this idolatry and be free in Him again. Come and crush it, Jesus.