Our Deepest Longing

The deepest longing of the human heart is to meet with God. Some people may not recognize it, and in some it may be buried very deep, but we all have a longing for a meaningful and abiding relationship with our Creator. The psalmist said it this way, As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? (Psalm 42:1-2, NIV)

We are in the habit of filling our life with many things all in an effort to satisfy the longing within, when the only way the longing will be fulfilled is when we kneel at the feet of our Creator and acknowledge Him as Lord and Savior. And then, by spending time with Him everyday, we can keep our relationship with Him alive and fresh. The wonderful thing about this is He also wants to be in relationship with us. I am sure all of us who are parents can understand His desire for relationship with us. We want our children to love us, to want to be with us, to look up to us. We do not want them to “love” us just for what we can give them. It makes us unhappy when they show us disrespect and when they go their own way and refuse to listen to our godly advice.

We were created in the image of God, and it is His desire for us to acknowledge Him, to worship Him and to live our lives to please Him. God always has our best interests at heart. He wants to bless us. And He knows that for us to receive His blessings, we must be in correct relationship with Him.

Instead of running after all the things that the world offers, we would be so much better off to look to the One who can meet every need that we have. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus tells us, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33)  So many times, we fall into the trap of seeking for things that will not last. We get a new “this or that,” and it seems to satisfy for a time, and then the “new” wears off, and we are back where we started. We can see this illustrated in the desires of our children. There is always something new that just has to be obtained to make life worthwhile—and how soon the new item is discarded in favor of something else that must be obtained—and on it goes.

None of the things that we obtain will satisfy our longing for God. I have heard it said that there is a God-shaped vacuum inside each of us, and it can only be filled by the Lord Jesus. My desire is to seek Him. Seek is defined as to go in search or quest of; to try to obtain.  Synonyms of seek are pursue and follow.  Some lyrics from one of my favorite worship songs speak of seeking the Lord:  My soul follows hard after Thee; Early in the morning I will rise up and seek Thee.*  Seeking God requires effort; it requires time.  Wouldn’t our time and effort be well spent seeking after the One who will fill our deepest longings?

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. (Psalm 63:1-NIV)

*My Soul Follows Hard After Thee, ©1978 Jeffrey Smith, Words and Music by Jeffrey Smith