Image Source: iStockPhoto

Image Source: iStockPhoto

My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. – Psalm 84:2

Years ago, there was an advertisement on television featuring Andy Griffith and his big toothy grin. Smiling ear-to-ear in his inimitable way he asked, “What are you hungry for when you don’t know what you are hungry for?” His answer was always “Something on a Ritz® cracker!”

Have you ever wondered what you are hungry for? Sometimes, we may think true physical hunger is rearing up, shouting to be satisfied. We mentally run through the litany of foods we like to eat and nothing sounds good. We calculate what we will feed our hunger.

If we are quiet, we may hear:

“Me. You’re hungry for me. Let me feed you.”

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. – Psalm 73:26

We were created for intimacy with God. Our hearts cry out for it. For many years we have answered the cry with Ritz® crackers. Or chocolate, or pizza, or cheese enchiladas. We have misinterpreted the cry of our hearts for intimacy with God and fed our spiritual hunger, physical food.

Psalm 42:7 says “Deep calls to deep.” From the depths of our hungry souls we cry out for the Lord.

Try this: If you are hungry, but can’t figure out what you are hungry for, rather than tearing open a package of Oreos or Ben and Jerry’s ice cream or whatever is your biggest temptation when you aren’t physically hungry, try instead , opening up God’s Living Word of truth. Try calling upon the Lord of Heaven and earth. Believe His promises to you:

Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! – Isaiah 30:18

I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them. -Hosea 11:4

Oh Jesus, I know that when I don’t know what I am hungry for, it is actually YOU I crave. I pray that I might wait for you and experience your abundance and joy flood my soul. Amen.