How Greater Communion with God Leads to True Soul Satisfaction

Posted on Jun 08, 2023 Topic : Inspirational/Devotional, Men's Christian Living, Women's Christian Living

"The soul's deepest thirst is for God himself, who has made us so that we can never be satisfied without him."—F.F. Bruce

God has made us in such a way that we experience yearnings and cravings. Left to ourselves, we are incomplete and insufficient, feeble and sorely lacking. And though we are often driven and motivated by our physical longings, deeper still are our spiritual longings. Just as we cannot live physically without food and water, we cannot live spiritually without spiritual sustenance. F.F. Bruce says the deepest thirst of all is our thirst for God, and the reason is simple: The God who created us formed us in such a way that we are not meant to exist apart from him. To live apart from God is the spiritual equivalent of trying to live without food and water. It will lead only to weakness, pain, and death. This being the case, may we echo King David, who prayed, “Earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1). This is a prayer God delights to answer, for he loves to meet our insufficiency with his bounty, our emptiness with his fullness.

"God only is the saint's treasure and chief good: he lays up treasure in heaven and this treasure is God."—William Strong

What is it that we, as Christians, long for? What is it that we crave? What is it that will quiet our restless hearts? We want forgiveness, for we know our rebellion. We want joy, for we know our misery. We want justice, for we lament that the righteous suffer while the evil flourish. We want heaven, for we know we deserve hell. There are many longings, many hungers and thirsts, that can drive us to the open arms of the Father. Yet behind them all there is a deeper longing, a brighter treasure, a higher good—God himself. The Bible tells us of a treasure hidden in a field and a man who gave up all he had to buy that field and acquire its treasure (Matthew 13:44). And that treasure is truly God. The greatest longings of our souls cannot be satisfied by forgiveness or joy or justice or heaven or anything else. They can be satisfied only by God, who is himself our treasure, our reward, our joy, our delight, the one without whom we have nothing, and the one with whom we have everything we could ever need.