Hungering and Thirsting for God - Pt. 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, December 11. Power, wealth, or fame can be enticing, but those things do little to satisfy a vacant soul. Today's podcast points to a close relationship with Jesus Christ as the only thing that brings true fulfillment. When you think about hunger and thirst, they certainly are creations of God. That's the way our body continues to live. If there was no food, no water, we couldn't live long, especially with water. And so when you think about what satisfies your physical appetite, a number of things. What satisfies your spiritual appetite? And the question is, do you even really have a spiritual appetite? I want you to turn, if you will, to Psalm 42 and listen to what David says as he thought about his own life and what was happening at this particular time.

Let me give you a little background. He's away from Jerusalem at this point. It may be the time when Absalom had sort of won the people over and driven his own father away. And he starts this chapter off by talking about a deer panting. And so more than likely David had seen this.

It's upstream or a pond somewhere. And while he was watching that, he probably thought about this. And later on to writing, here's what he said in verse 1 of Psalm 42. As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. And more than likely when he saw that, at this particular time in his life, he was thirsting and hungering and yearning for things to be right and knowing in his own heart that there was great trouble all around him. And he knew within his own heart that what he needed most of all was his relationship to the Lord. And knowing in his heart that that was the key to everything, here's what he said.

Just like the deer pants at the water brook, thirsty, exhaustive, probably fleeing from something that had tried to attack him. And now he finds a little rest and he says, so Lord, my soul pants for you, for the living God. When shall I come into peer before God? And I want us to think about this whole issue of hungering and thirsting for God. Do you have a hunger for God? Do you have a real thirst for God?

Then if I ask you to sort of give me a little idea of what you do all day long, then you could probably answer that better than I could, whether you do or whether you do not. Well, when I read this passage and listen to what he says, he says, like a deer pants at the water brook. And so you say, well, what is a hungering and thirsting after God? All I want you to do is to examine your heart.

Nobody's being critical. Examine your heart to say, Lord, I do, I don't. Because you see, there are a lot of people who sit in church week after week who are very lukewarm. They've decided how much of their life God's going to get and how much they're going to keep for themselves. But listen, when he says, as the deer pants for the water brook, so my soul does what? Yearns for you, God. Thirst for you, Lord. There's a deep abiding sense of desire that's so strong. And it's an insatiable desire that is one that is being satisfied and never ultimately satisfied. It is that deep yearning and desire that is so deep and so strong, it governs your thinking. You see, it's a holy kind of hunger. It's a divine kind of thirst. It is something that God places within our hearts. And so when you think of it, it's a passion for God.

And far too many people are just willing to have shallow understanding of who God is. So let's think about this for a moment and think about the fact that this hunger is the source of it. It's from God.

Now I want you to think about something. When does this hunger come into a person's life? We would normally say when you trust Jesus as your Savior. But I believe it's before that. I believe that when a person is born into this world, remember there's a state, there's a season in a young child's life when they're absolutely innocent. And nobody can tell when someone else reaches past that stage. But I do believe that God places in every single human being a desire for himself.

Now listen carefully. They cannot be of Satan. Any hunger and thirst for God cannot be of Satan because the one thing he will attack above everything else is your personal intimate relationship with him or your even desire to be intimately related to him. You say, well, if God creates in a child's heart a desire for him, then why don't we all feel that is the reason?

There are probably a couple of things. For example, let's say that a child grows up in a home where the parents are Christians. They love the Lord. The Bible's on the table. They see them, read it, they hear them pray and all the rest. It doesn't take very long for that child to realize that God is somebody real to my parents.

And so therefore I want to know him. And so what God placed in that child, listen carefully, is nurtured very early. That you can know this God and have a relationship with him. Now let's take a child who grows up in a home where the parents never think about God, don't talk about God, no church, no Bible, no nothing. They don't want to watch anything on TV or listen on TV, nothing that has to do with God whatsoever. Does that child have a hunger in their heart for God?

The hunger is there for God because God placed it there, but it is never identified. And the child doesn't know that. And so what happens? That child grows up and what happens is that child directs their attention to the things of the world because that's what their parents do.

That's what other people do. And so therefore the God-given hunger placed in every heart, at some point in life a person chooses, listen, having understand the things of God to follow the Lord or they choose to follow the world. And so this is why I say to parents, very important you teach your children very early in life by example first of all and then by precept and principle who God is, how He works in our life and the fact that He desires a personal intimate relationship with us.

He says, as the deer pants for the water brook, so pants my soul for you dear Lord. Now God's giving us many, many gifts in life and many things that you and I can enjoy. And there's nothing wrong with those desires and drives that He's given us in life as long as they are kept in their proper perspective. But here's what happens.

And you know I've seen this. God begins to bless someone financially for example, before long they've grown totally lukewarm, drop out of the church. At one time they had a real desire. They loved God. They desired Him. They wanted to be what God wanted them to be.

And somehow they couldn't handle the blessing. And when you think about the fact that God has made us for Himself, that the most important thing in your life and my life today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, the last day of our life is our personal relationship to Him. He desires that you and I hunger and thirst for Him.

He wants us wanting Him. So let's think about the whole idea of what's a little bit more comprehensive nature of this idea. Well first of all we said, it's implanted in your heart by God. It's been there since you came into this world.

And I think about it as we said before, millions of kids whose parents never even think about it. So they come along and they try to spend their whole lives trying to fill it up with something that'll satisfy. Only God through His Son Jesus Christ is going to satisfy. So it is a God-given gift. It's the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. He's the one who creates this desire for God.

You and I can't boast of that. It's a God-given desire, the work of the Holy Spirit in our life. Then when I think about, for example, what happens when the Holy Spirit begins to work and He creates this desire in the life of a believer.

Here's what you'll do. You'll either ignore that and go after some more of this or more of Him or more of her when God's trying to direct your life to Him. When you start hungering and thirsting for God, I guarantee you this. And I've lived long enough and I've lived through enough to say to you by personal experience, when you have Jesus Christ and you have a hunger and thirst in your heart for Him, you can be happy. You can be content with or without. You can have a joy that's indescribable. You can have a sense of peace for which you cannot explain. You're no longer lonely. There's a sense of fullness and completeness and joy in your heart.

Why? Because you have a hunger and a thirst for the God who created you so that you live your life hungering and thirsting and yearning after Him. When God is working in your life, there is a tranquility and a contentment no matter what kind of a situation you're in. You may be in a bad relationship in your business and so forth and you think, well, how can I be content with this going on?

I'll tell you how. When you have a hunger and thirst for God that brings you to His Word, brings you to talk to Him, brings you to share your heart, you're going to have a contentment and a peace that this world can't understand. Why? Because our Father who said He created us for Himself is there to fill you up no matter what you're facing in life.

It's certainly not a once and for all experience. Well, I'm now hungering and thirsting for God. No, because the truth is God is absolutely, listen, He's fathomless. He's infinite. There will never come a time in your life and mine when we will not be hungering and thirsting after Him if we're walking in His will. How much will we ever begin to understand about God in this life?

Who knows? And probably you understand a lot more than you thought you would at some point in your life. But you know what? There's so much more to learn about Him. The experience of being loved by Him and coming to that conclusion. The experience of knowing Him and not just knowing Him, but experiencing Him.

And remember this, you will never be able to out-give Him. And what we usually think about when we say that, we think about, well, if I give Him ten, I'm going to get fifteen. If I tithe, I'm going to get a blessing.

But if I give more than that, you know what? The greatest blessings of God are not material. The greatest blessings of God are the awareness of His presence. Listen, the awareness of His power in your life. And if you'll think about it, if you're going to accomplish the things that God wants you to accomplish in life, you've got to have a hunger and thirst after Him.

Because, listen, if you're not hungering and thirsting after God, you're hungering and thirsting after something else or somebody else because we have God-given, deep, abiding drives and hungers in our life. The question is, what are you going to satisfy with? Go back to the refrigerator. You could have hot dogs on one side, Angus beef on the other. You could have ice cream, chocolate syrup and nuts on this side.

Don't even mention thinking this side because you can't compare with it. So what you have to decide is you have to decide, what do I want? We all have hungers and desires. And this week, some of you are going to work extra hard because you have a desire that you want. Is anything wrong with that?

No. As long as it's not competition with your love and devotion to the Son of God. And when I think about that, I think about the fact that you now will never be able to accomplish and achieve all that God has for us until we have a hunger and thirst for Him because you see, that's the criteria.

As we said, it's a progressive thing. And I look back and sometimes I go back and read my diaries and I think about, Lord, is that as far as long as I was in those days? And I think about how I thought and the things I prayed for that I don't even pray for those things anymore or even about them anymore.

And I can also read my struggles to trust Him and think about when I wrote what I was struggling with and could I trust Him in a way. And I was thinking, God, please, and I'm just going to trust you and on and on and on. Things that never even crossed my mind today because a hungering, thirsting, yearning for God is a progressive thing. It's something that begins and then you move on and you say, well, what makes it grow?

Here's what makes it grow. When you begin to hunger for God and it begins to affect the way you live, you know what God does? He just creates a deeper hunger. It's an insatiable hunger. It's never satisfied.

What a spiritual paradox. We say, if you hunger and thirst after God, He'll satisfy every desire of your heart. And on the other hand, we say, but you're never satisfied.

But here's the difference. You're satisfied with Him. You're never satisfied with enough of Him. So what you have to ask is this. What are you hungering for?

What are you thirsting for? And once in a while somebody will say, well, my husband and my wife, she wants this or he wants that. And no matter what happens, he's just got to have it.

And we're working hard and we got two jobs so we can do this. You know what? Something's out of sync. Now watch this. You can have a lot of things. And when your relationship with Him is right, your hands are always open. Well, God, you can take that and take this and take that. But if you've got the grasp and hold and claw and cleave to hold on to somebody, there's something wrong. God will so satisfy your heart that while you have other things in life, they don't take the place that He has.

And so David says, as the deer pants for the water brook. I mean, you can just see it. I mean, he's thirsty and he has to have it. How many of us feel like we have to have God?

The truth is we do. How many of us, your whole reputation, your life, your business, all of these things, what's first? What's the most important thing?

If you can just catch this one idea that He not only is the most important part of your life, He will never be satisfied till He gets all of you. It's a losing battle to let anything or anybody come between you and the Father and you begin to want them or something in life. And what happens is you come to the place in your life and there have been times and I would say a lot of times in my life that I wake up in the middle of the night and the Lord speak to my heart about something. And it's like, and sometimes I've said, God, I just want, I want, I want you to hug me, Lord. I want to hug you. And sometimes in my own personal relationship with Him, it's like, I can't get enough.

And I know that I can't get Him down here where I can touch Him and feel Him. And on the other hand, when that little season of prayer or being quiet is over, there's this awesome sense of peace and genuine contentment and love and devotion and everything else. And you know what? How long does that satisfy you? It satisfies you, but you know what? It's this insatiable hunger for Him that you want to know more, experience more. And if I should say to you this morning, how many of you would like to have a real strong, genuine, undeniable, inescapable, overwhelming, powerful awareness of the presence of God in your life?

Well, every single one of us would. Well, let me ask you a question. How badly do you want it?

Do you want it strongly enough to get light in at nighttime and say, Lord, speak to my heart. Lord, do whatever is necessary so that you really and truly are the most important person and thing in my life. He meant to take something away from you. You have to ask yourself the question, what am I clinging to? What am I holding on to? What's more important than that relationship with Him? Hungering, thirsting up to God means you have a yearning, a deep abiding desire.

Listen, they can't really be fulfilled. And on the other hand, it can. It's progressive.

It keeps moving. And you see, what is spiritual maturity? Spiritual maturity is growing in our relationship. And so if I were to say to you, are you a mature Christian? I wouldn't tell anybody I was mature, not a mature Christian. Because you see, I'm not too sure I know exactly what that would involve. From my viewpoint, I may think, well, I'm pretty mature. But if I looked at it from God's perspective, He'd say, man, you're just a child. Here's what you need in your life.

So I would never say that. But this much I do know. I'm making progress. You can make progress.

But to make progress, you've got to deal with those things that clutter for your life. For example, one thing about having a hunger and thirst for God is, you know what's happened? He's central in your life all day long. If you have a hunger and thirst for Him, there's no point during the day you say, I need to go somewhere and pray because there's nothing wrong with praying.

I'm all for that. Because if you have a hunger and thirst for God, you're going to want to pray. But here's what happens. You're not going to limit it to some point, some time or some incident. In other words, praying no longer becomes what happens in your life because you have a need.

Prayer is just what you do. It's who you are. It's like you live with your husband or wife. You don't have to make a big concerted effort to say tonight, I love you, dear.

No, because you know what? You're always expressing it. You express it in different ways, the way you touch Him or her, the way you speak to them, or the things you remember, the things you do. And so it is with God.

We don't have to make a big issue out of it. It's just the fact that when we have a hungering, thirsting, yearning desire for Him, He's always central in our life. There's lots of competition in our lives. And I simply want to ask you to start thinking in your life about this. You get up tomorrow morning and the world begins again. But what happens if you stop and say, Lord, today, I want you to draw me to yourself. I want to experience an intimacy with you that I've not experienced before. Lord, here's what I have to do.

These are things I see that I have to do today. I want you to be so real to me that while I'm doing these, I'm aware of your presence. Stir up that hunger within me. Create a deeper desire for you in my heart. And Lord, when you see me being attracted or something appealing to me that would draw me away from you, draw me back.

Help me to understand. Draw me back. Draw me close to yourself. Draw me back to yourself. Don't let me waver. Don't let me wander. But create within me such a desire for you that it absolutely controls my conversation and my conduct all day long. You think He won't answer that prayer? He will answer that prayer.