Help for the Hungry SoulSample

Know Your Hungry Heart

I stood before a room full of women from a local church who had gathered for a weekend retreat. For the past three days, I had had the great joy of teaching them from God’s word and connecting with them in conversation. These women loved the Lord and one another, and were clearly hungry to learn from Scripture together—so hungry that they had committed an entire weekend to this pursuit. I hadn’t planned on surveying them for my book, but after the last session I asked them if they would be willing to answer a few questions for me.

Their insights have been invaluable (thank you, sisters!). One of the questions I asked—the one that seemed most important and revealing—was, How would you describe your current appetite for God’s word?

By far, the most common answer was hungry.

Three Kinds of Biblical Hunger

My question for you right now is the same: How would you describe your current appetite for God’s word?

My aim in this chapter is to help you know yourself better so you can discern how you might grow. I’m praying that God, by his Spirit, will help us understand our hungry hearts, what we are desiring most, and how those desires play out on a normal day as they relate to God’s word. Think of this chapter as a kind of “heart check.”

First, we will look at three kinds of biblical hunger and consider which one best applies to us. Then we will look at five common hindrances that can keep us from growing an appetite for Scripture. Ready? Let’s begin.

Starving Hunger

First, there’s the starving hunger of a heart that is always hungry but never satisfied. God says this is like trying to fill up a broken, holey jar with water:

For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jer. 2:13)

This is every human being’s natural condition, as we seek to feed our hunger with what can never satisfy us (Isa. 55:2). It is a useless and exhausting way to live. On its own efforts, the human heart remains empty and starving. It will always be searching for satisfaction in the wrong places—unless God himself rescues us.

Perhaps this description feels too close to home. Perhaps you have found yourself desperate to be satisfied in your deepest heart, but nothing in this world has been able to do this for you. There is good news: You were made for more. You were made for God, for fullest satisfaction in him.

Your Creator is also the Redeemer of the starving heart. In every way that the world has come up empty to you, you can count on him being the fullness your soul most hungers for. Why not ask him, even right now? He will delight to answer your hungry call, filling you with his Spirit and changing what you love (Pss. 14:2; 145:18).

Seeking Hunger

Have you gone through seasons when God seems far away and you have little desire for him? You know the Lord is the only true fulfillment for the longing of your soul, but reading your Bible feels dull and dry. My hand is raised. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve experienced this and have now come to expect these seasons. They are part of the normal Christian experience.

Are you there right now? Know you are not alone. In fact, your desire to keep seeking God proves the genuineness of your hunger for him (1 Pet. 1:6–7). Only those who love the Lord want more of him when he feels distant (Pss. 27; 63). Only those who have tasted and seen his goodness know when that taste wanes (Ps. 34:8).

Why do we experience these seasons? We will look more carefully at five specific reasons below, but certain factors leave us feeling far from God and hungering for more of him, such as physical and mental exhaustion, suffering, struggles with sin patterns, distraction, and God’s purposeful withdrawing so our hunger for him will grow. Whatever your situation, hear God’s promise to you as you seek him: “I love those who love me, / and those who seek me diligently find me” (Prov. 8:17).

Satisfied Hunger

Finally, there is the holy hunger of the satisfied heart. Over the past several months, I have grown to love Psalm 119, which might be the best example of this kind of hunger. The psalm is a complex and honest heart cry of hunger to know and rejoice in God and his words—the kind of hunger that every believer in Jesus has the privilege of knowing, in some form and degree, because of his intervening, transforming grace. Notice the complexity and realism in the psalmist’s words:

My soul clings to the dust; give me life according to your word! When I told of my ways, you answered me; teach me your statutes! Make me understand the way of your precepts, and I will meditate on your wondrous works. . . . I cling to your testimonies, O Lord; let me not be put to shame! I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart! (Ps. 119:25–27, 31–32)

The psalmist plays his song from heartstrings deeply rehearsed in God’s character, ways, and words, for he knows the Lord and wants more of him; and yet, at the same time, he plays a realistic song. He has learned to hunger for God all the more because life is hard and his heart is wayward—but God is entirely trustworthy.

Right there is the blessing of true Godward hunger: the more of God we come to know, the more of God we want to know. This doesn’t mean perfection, for all our yearnings in this life will be incomplete until we see Jesus; but it does mean we have endless potential to grow, as we seek more of God and receive the fullness of joy that only he can give (Ps. 16:11).

We long to be satisfied in him and in his precious words.

Knowing Your Hungry Heart

How would you describe your current appetite for God’s word? Do any of these words resonate with you right now? There are no right answers, just honest ones.

Indifferent Eager

Overwhelmed Desirous

Sporadic Anxious

Distracted Bored

Consistent Craving

Longing Disappointed

Guilty Desperate

Parched Thankful

Lacking Strong

Nervous Hopeful

Curious Lazy

Struggling Skeptical