16, May 2016
‘You have said, “Seek My face.” My heart says to You, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.”’ Psalm 27:8 ESV
If you spend hours each day watching television and can’t 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 favor of men than for pebbles. At noon I had the most ardent longings after God, which I have never 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".
In today's scripture, 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.
