Longing Only for God

You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. Psalm 63:1

David sought God with every fiber of his being.

David craved God. He longed for God as one longs for water when parched.

Like David’s longing for God, what do you seek?

What does your flesh cry out for?

What deep longing do you yearn to satisfy?

Love? Acceptance? Worth? Money? Power? Influence? Authority?

Or do you, too, long for God as David did?

Let’s go back to Psalm 63 and think about the last time you were thirsty. I mean really parched. Wasn’t that deep drink of water incredibly satisfying?

It’s as if when drinking it, your cells immediately cried out for joy.

Maybe you refilled your cup, drinking another entire glass just as quickly. You set the glass down and instantly felt better. Why? Because your human self is dependent on water and when your cells are deprived, they begin to shrivel up and die.

We were also created to crave God like our body craves water and nourishment. When we don’t have God in our life, we begin to crave other things to fill the empty space. Other things from the world like worth, acceptance, and love. And when we don’t choose God to fill our empty space, we begin to shrivel up and die.

Finding your worth in this world finds yourself bowing to your flesh instead of God.

Craving acceptance in this world finds yourself bowing to whims and fads instead of God.

Longing for love in this world will find yourself lonely and desperate as you seek the love from this world instead of God.

Allow God to fill you instead with Himself. Any area of your life where you feel that deep longing, give it to God. Tell Him what you’re longing and ask Him to help you.

As one who follows God, we know what to do. We know God’s living water is unlimited and always available.

Yet old habits are hard to stop. We often begin relying on ourselves when issues arise, instead of drinking from God’s powerful well of life.

Return to your first love: God. Write down or speak to Him all the ways you’ve neglected to put Him first. You know.

Repent. And ask Him to help you put Him first once again. He will. And the next time you’re tempted to live from within yourself alone, repent once more, asking Him to lead you. As you purposely place God first, it will become easier and easier to depend only on Him. And as He leads you, your soul will once again long only for Him.

Which Self

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practicers and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator. Colossians 3:9-10

Have you put on your new self?

The one God created you to live within?

Entering into our relationship with God, He forgives our sin away.

Our old selves.

But it tends to sneak back.

Our old habits, thoughts, actions, desires, and selves.

Yes, we are still the Lords, but we begin acting as if we are not.

We forget who we have become.

We forget Whose we now are.

Colossians 3 reminds we have put down our old self and its practices.

Our old habits. Our selfishness. Our life apart from God.

Instead, we have put on our new selves.

Our new identity as God’s.

And our new identity is continually renewed within the knowledge that we are created in God’s very image.

But as Colossians reminds us, it’s a choice.

When life happens, what self will you put on?

Will you react within your old habits of fear and inadequacy?

Or will you react within your new self, wrapped in God’s image of peace, love, and joy?

Notice which you choose.

And purpose to dress within your new self: the very image of God.

Photos by https://unsplash.com/@brodatafotografia, https://unsplash.com/@beccamchaffie, https://unsplash.com/@belart84