(A psalm written by David while he was in the desert fleeing from his son Absalom.)
(2 Samuel 15-18 in excerpts)
God, you are my God, I seek you with all my heart.
My soul thirsts for you,
my whole body longs for you
in this barren, dry land where there is no water.
I saw you in your sanctuary
and marvel at your power and glory.
Your grace means more to me than life,
I praise you with all my heart!
I want to honor you as long as I live,
and raise my hands to you in prayer.
As with delicious food, you make me happy,
I want to praise and praise you.
When I lie awake at night I think about you,
I just think about you all night long.
I think about how much you helped me,
I cheer for joy,
protected in the shadow of your wings.
I hold myself close to you,
for your right hand keeps me safe.
But those who want to destroy me
will disappear even into the depths of the earth.
They will die by the sword
and become prey to jackals.
The king will rejoice in God.
And all who trust in HIM will praise HIM,
because liars must remain silent.
( Psalm 63 )
How do you satisfy your longing and your hunger and thirst for a fulfilled life?
Are you looking for them in your marriage and family, in your friendships, your job and success, or in your possessions, money, car, house, hobbies or addictions?
Where do you find safety in the storms of your life?
As David prayed this psalm, he was once again experiencing an existential crisis. His own son Absalom wanted to kill him so that he could become king himself (2 Samuel 15-18).
Everything that David owned and that he was threatened to slip through his fingers like sand. Instead of a royal palace, prosperity, peace and a good life, escape, desert sun on your head and sand between your teeth and the constant fear for your life.
His answer in great distress was this:
The desire for God’s presence and His care and protection gives me security and satisfies my longing – for David also the longing for peace and security and security. His message to us is: No matter where we are, we should always reach out to God, because only HE can fully satisfy our longing.
What prevents us from actually finding the fulfillment of our lives and our longings? To actually find fulfillment in God? The hustle and bustle of everyday life, distraction from media and the Internet, worries in our lives, complacency, spiritual disappointments, disappointment in people and Christians…?
Jesus tells a parable, an example story, the parable of the four-fold field, of four different fields ( Mark 4:3-20).
He is concerned with what happens to the seeds the sower sows. It’s about what happens to the Word of God to us in the middle of our lives. And Jesus interprets this example story.
The way: the birds come and eat the scattered seeds. ( Satan takes away the seed .)
The thin layer of earth with a rocky bottom: The hot sun causes the emerging plants to wither because the plants cannot find food. (People receive the seed – God’s Word with joy, have no deep roots and give up again in difficulties.)
Among the thorns: they shoot up and choke the tender stalks. (God’s word and faith are drowned out by everyday worries, the temptation for wealth and the desire for beautiful things.)
The fertile soil: produces rich and large harvests. (Hear and accept God’s message and bear abundant fruit)
Jesus makes it clear that circumstances are not responsible. It is our own personal responsibility: Do we want to hear and understand? Who and what do we give space in our lives? Who or what do we give more space in our lives than God and His words?
“ And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. ( Mark 4:9 )
This is your and my responsibility to decide whether you want to listen to God and give HIM space in your life!! First of all, this is completely independent of the living conditions and the influence, origin and material situation. You can decide: I give God and His Word space, a lot of space in my life. And I allow myself to be shaped by Christ.
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” ( Colossians 3:16 )
What fuels this longing? What promotes this longing for Christ and His Word? It’s about your decision to trust God and HIM and give HIM space in your life so that Christ and His Word shape your life. The fertile soil that Jesus spoke of produces a rich and plentiful harvest. With the willingness to hear God’s words personally, to let them shape us and shape our lives, this seed can fall deep into our lives and bring a powerful harvest if we hear and accept God’s message and shape our lives accordingly.
Sometimes it starts with the very practical and external things that I noticed in the church service in Tanzania – and I told myself that I would take that home with me: it was normal for the Tanzanian Christians to have their Bible with them as a book and not that Bible on the smartphone. I can read and work in my Bible, take notes and it is my book. And honestly, how tempting it is to take your smartphone during church service and read the news or other things in addition to the Bible. I know it’s something external and not a law, but it’s also a sign – so let’s all just bring our Bibles – very old-fashioned, but not bad!
Where do we look for meaning and fulfillment in our lives? Why not first and last with our God, in whom we believe and trust? You say I do – is that really true? God’s people Israel had also promised this, but their everyday life looked completely different. Suddenly her faith was secondary and perhaps just lip service. And God laments exactly that:
“For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. “cracked cisterns” (Jeremiah 2:13 ) . )
They have behaved unjustly towards God, broken their promise to God. And so they made and lived a terrible exchange that was, above all, a catastrophe for themselves. It was their exchange: They exchanged the fresh well with bubbling, fresh water for cracked cisterns that contain stale water, if any. You collect rainwater in cisterns, which is not of good quality to begin with, unless you want to water flowers. They exchanged God, the never-ending source of fresh water, for worthless and powerless idols that cannot quench our thirst for life (e.g. money, influence, power, reputation…) We notice that it is not about the supply of water, but about how we quench the thirst for life.
It is not only the people who, in our eyes, are completely wrong in the moral and ethical area, because they live this exchange and no longer worship God as God, and because they have thus gotten rid of God, ungodly, are now failing in their lives ( Romans 1 ). No, that’s me too and that’s you too if we no longer seek closeness to God and no longer expose ourselves to the good and formative influence of God’s Word and His Spirit. Then I am one of those who quench our thirst for life from cracked cisterns and with stale and bad water and then notice that our life is becoming increasingly barren.
It’s simply true: what we watch and let into our lives, media, internet, books… will shape us – for sure. You can easily test how much advertising influences and shapes us, and what we then buy, look at… that we don’t actually need. But that’s exactly what happens when we expose ourselves to God, His Word and His Spirit – it will shape us. Only with the difference: This is the source of living water and not stale water from a cistern. God himself has placed in us this longing for fulfillment, life and even eternity, a longing that goes beyond our earthly life.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 : “He has put eternity in the hearts of men.”
So we are naturally yearning people . Funny, there’s the word addiction in there. So we’re constantly looking, we’re constantly longing. Maybe that’s exactly why people fall into addictions so quickly because our search, our thirst for fulfillment and life is not quenched but is always very much there in our lives. The question is, where do we look? Church Father Augustine said: “Our hearts are restless until they rest, O God, in you.”
So this day and this service is a great opportunity for you to have your hunger and longing truly satisfied. It’s not about techniques, strategies or methods. Not another book “7 ways to fulfill your longing…” It’s about a decision of your heart and then also your head: Who do you want to commit to? Where do you want to seek the fulfillment of your longing? It’s about your relationship with the living God who comes to meet you in Jesus.
During preparation, I heard a sermon by Hans-Peter Royer that gives clear and actually simple answers to the question of why we feel so little of God and experience with Him. He quotes in it:
1 Peter 2:2+3: “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.“
How full or perhaps oversaturated are you in your life? Are you hungry at all – craving God and His Word? Is your life not full enough and are you happy with the way your life looks? Maybe barren and empty – but somehow numb to everything? A child who is hungry and does not cry when not fed is sick. A Christian who does not long and desire nourishment from God’s Word and relationship with Jesus and usually in God’s church is sick. Again, it’s not about methods, but about your relationship with God.
“Deep inside me I long for you,
Longing that pushes me to you.
Deep inside me, a flame very soft
and I wish that it burns like a fire.
Rekindle my love for you in me,
that your Holy Spirit can work in me anew.
Let my heart beat with yours, because with you I can dare.
And you satisfy the longing deep within me!
Deep inside me I long for you,
Longing because my heart is attached to you.
Deep within me I say: Thank you, my LORD.
There is nothing that will ever separate me from you anymore.
Rekindle my love for you in me,
that your Holy Spirit can work in me anew.
Let my heart beat with yours,
because with you I can dare.
And you satisfy the longing deep within me!”
However, the longing for God is not first and only about doing well and being satisfied, i.e. full. Psalm 119 in particular makes it clear: the longing for God is not just about happiness, but about being close to God. About the longing to live according to God’s standards.
Psalm 119:40: “Behold, I have longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy righteousness.“
Psalm 119:123: “Mine eyes fail for thy salvation, and for the word of thy righteousness.“
Psalm 119:174: “I have longed for thy salvation, O LORD; and thy law is my delight.“
Do you want that, or does everything in you resist finding fulfillment in practical following of Jesus? What could be the causes of the lack of desire for God and His Word?
Malice: giving space in our lives to evil that kills our lives and relationships! (“malicious”)
Fraud: untruthfulness, injustice
Hypocrisy: pretending to be something that does not correspond to the reality in our lives, acting…
Jealousy: Living in competition with others and comparing themselves to others
Slander: any talk about others, behind their backs, that puts them in a bad light.
satiety and self-satisfaction
Distraction, sensory overload…
All in all, they are all relationship killers in relationships with people and with God. I invite you – and I want to do it myself – to pray with this song:
“LORD, fill me again!”
Fill me anew with Your Spirit!
Fill me again with your love!
Fill me anew with your faith!
Fill me anew with your joy!
Here I am before you, my hands are empty,
LORD, fill me completely with you!
Asaph says at the end of his crisis psalm, when he almost gave up everything and failed:
Psalm 73:28: Being close to you is my happiness.
“But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works.“
Living in this longing for God, close to HIM, shaped by His Word and Spirit is no guarantee of health, long and successful life, but God promises:
“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.” (Psalm 91:1+2)
No matter what happens in our lives, we are and will remain in God’s good and strong hand if we are so close to God that we live in His shadow. It’s not about new knowledge and knowledge, but about our heart and our relationship with Jesus!!
Amen!
Bible references with kind permission: ERF Bibelserver