Devotional: How's your spiritual appetite

How's your spiritual appetite

“Listen, God, I’m calling at the top of my lungs: Be good to me! Answer me! When my heart whispered, “Seek God, my whole being replied, “I’m seeking him!” Don’t hide from me now!”

Memory Verse: Psalm 27:8 – “Listen, God, I’m calling at the top of my lungs: Be good to me! Answer me!
When my heart whispered, “Seek God, my whole being replied, “I’m seeking him!” Don’t hide from me now!”

The Word for Today devotional by United Christian Broadcasters (UCB) says

If you spend hours each day watching television and cannot find a few minutes for prayer and reading the Scriptures, you have a spiritual appetite problem - one that needs your attention.

David Brainerd, an eighteenth-century missionary to the American Indians, wrote in his journal ‘I withdrew to my usual place of retirement in great tranquillity. I knew only to breathe out my desire for a perfect conformity to Him in all things.

God was so precious that the world with all its enjoyments seemed infinitely vile. I have no more desire for the favour of men than for pebbles. At noon, I had the most ardent longings after God, which I ever felt in my life.

In my secret retirement I could do nothing but tell my dear Lord in a sweet calmness that I knew I desired nothing but Him, nothing but holiness, that He had given me these desires and only He could give me the things I desired.

I never seemed to be so unhinged from myself … so wholly devoted to God. My heart was swallowed up in God most of the day.’

The psalmist felt the same way: ‘I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever … how good it is to be near God!

I have made the Sovereign LORD my shelter’ (Psalm 73:25-28 NLT). You can tell how spiritually healthy you are by your appetite for the things of God.