In the last 2 weeks (except for the break I took at Christmas), I’ve been writing about my spiritual hunger and how it is strongest in my areas of greatest weakness. For example, I crave God’s love and affirmation more than some people do, because I am weak in this area. I overly-crave people’s affirmation to a point that I have wanted all people to love or like me. I say I “overly-crave” their liking and loving me, because I fell into people pleasing (letting others take advantage of me and hurt me.)
We do need other people. Hebrews 10:25 admonishes us, “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is coming.” There are many verses about our need to help others, and thus we know we need people. Yet, sometimes we need to go directly to the Lord for comfort. For example contrast this verse, (1Sam.23:16) “And Saul’s son, Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in the Lord,” with this verse (1Sam.30:16B), “David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.” In the first verse, Jonathan helped David seek God’s help (and encouraged David, as a friend does). In the second verse, David was surrounded by men who were so angry, they thought of stoning him. No one was there to help David, and on his own, he sought the Lord and strengthened himself. We cannot always have kind people nearby when we need comfort.
Compare the emotional nourishment others offer us with the physical nourishment food gives us. We must not eat all the time. We might need up to three meals daily, and only if the meals are very small, we might need to snack between meals. So it is with people. We need some time with others where we encourage them, and they encourage us. But we cannot force others to talk to us and listen to us all day long. We need some time alone. And even when we are around others, they cannot feed all of our emotional needs.
When we are alone or with others who are not meeting our emotional needs (especially around people who hate us, like David in the second verse I supplied), we need to help ourselves find strength in the Lord. For me that means I cannot expect others to meet all my needs, and often I cannot expect others to meet any of my needs. These are times when I need to love people and have compassion for them but not fear them or need them to love or even like me. I cannot afford to worry if they like me if that desire drives me to fear. Then I might fear I will offend them if I don’t do what they demand, and I might compromise. I might do what I know is not right or I might help them too much and neglect my needs. I would do all of that in the name of my fear of them and through my foolish act of self-harming service to them. If I do that I am people pleasing.
But you may not suffer from people pleasing. You or your friend may have issues with fear, or anger or selfishness, or dishonesty, or lust or greed, etc. Whatever issue plagues you (or your friend, for whom you pray) seek God’s guidance and let him feed you. For example, if you suffer from fear and anxiety, make sure you read passages about God’s strength and his refuge for you. Read verses where God reassures you he will protect you. I love Psalm 27:1, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?” I memorized this verse, because fear is one of my weaknesses (my 2nd to worst weakness.) If you read parts of the Bible where these reassuring verses are scarce or absent, either memorize them or keep verses posted about God’s reassurance and protection.
I believe God allows us to have weaknesses, so we will keep coming to Him to fill those gaps. These are spiritual hungers (1Peter2:2, “Like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.” Matt.5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”) We will never fully feed these hungers until we go to heaven and enjoy God’s eternal presence. Just as human hunger must be frequently fed, our God-hunger can only be met by frequent feeding on God’s word and by praying.
We must never feel ashamed of this hunger and neediness for God. We may have an anxiety that requires God’s frequent reassurance of his protection. Or perhaps we have the emotional hunger for love (with the temptation towards people pleasing if we don’t feed that hunger.) Whatever our weakness, we must constantly bring it to God, so he can fill it. We do this via Bible verses specific to our need and then fervent prayer as we meditate on those verses and cry out to God about our pain.
God loves our coming to him in neediness and hunger for his love (like Psalm143:6), and for reassurance (Romans 10:13-15), and for refuge (Psalm 27:1), and for “spiritual romance” (Job36:16,) and for friendship (John15:15) and for any other concern. We will never wear him out. God never thinks our concerns are too emotional, too demanding, too petty or childish. If we feel love-hungry, or scared or angry (or any other emotion) he wants to fill us and calm us and comfort us.
Coming to him once may not help us figure out all we are thinking and feeling. Phils.2:12a-13 says, “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act to fulfill his purpose.” We have to keep coming back to God. We struggle in this life as Romans 8:22-23 says, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, and not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” At times we don’t even know how to pray, as the 26-27th verses of the same chapter say, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” I know I have to tell God my sorrows, fears, anger, and confusion, over and over until I feel God’s peace. I don’t think this is a sin either. God knows we are frail, (Psalm 103:14, “He knows our frame. He is mindful we are dust.”) Our fragile human minds cannot always and instantly calm themselves over every upset the moment something upsets us. These fragile minds need to keep bringing our upsets to God. We need to keep telling God what upsets us so he can offer us peace. This process takes time.
If we compare the time a wound takes to heal to our grief, we can better understand why emotional healing takes time. We don’t apply antibiotic ointment to a deep wound and expect it to heal immediately. We know we must keep the wound clean and keep applying the ointment until the wound closes. Our minds are like those wounds, in the sense that we usually don’t heal the first time we tell God what upsets us (especially if this is a big upset, not a little one like not finding a good parking space.) If we can think of emotional healing more like wounds, we can give ourselves more grace when some wounds heal more slowly.
Thankfully we can quickly find peace after minor upsets. And as we mature in this healing process, fewer things may upset us. Or we may also find that we heal more quickly and need less time to get over a huge upset. This spiritual maturity takes time to grow, even as a tree takes time to grow. But if we remain faithful in bringing all this pain to God, he does help us. And we do get stronger.
This is a hard process, and too many Christians give up and remain immature. They hate bringing their pain to God, so they ignore or deny their pain. But they are also easily irritated and moody, and they struggle with their daily life. I do not mean “sometimes” moody or irritable. I mean people who live this way most of their lives. If you are this way or know a gal who is, encourage her to read this post. And best of all, reassure her that God loves her cries of pain. She does not need to fear her pain. God is ready to listen to her. I cannot promise the process will be easy if she has very deep, very severe emotional wounds. She may want to work with a counselor. Again, this is not a sin! I shared about my severe emotional wounds in my post called, “Embracing Grief,” so please look at that post. That was such a hard journey, and it took me over a year just to get past my denial and do a huge chunk of healing. But my growth was so significant during that year, I overcame a severe addiction to compulsive and excessive sugar consumption (for years I ate gobs of sugar DAILY; I could eat an entire pie—and yes I gained weight.)
God also does not reveal every single one of our weaknesses. If he told us every single sin and weakness we struggle with (explaining it to us and telling us to give it up) we would be devastated. So please do not feel badly if you continue to grow in your faith yet keep finding new areas where you need to grow as a Christian. This is an essential part of our Christian walk, and when we compare the struggles a baby and toddler must overcome just to grow, we can better offer ourselves compassion as we face our sins and weaknesses. God will continue to guide us. He is so faithful.
There is so much more to this aspect of our God hunger and our need to bring our sorrow to him. But I need to close this post for today, and I will write more about this another day. As always, I want to urge my readers: please let me know if there is any aspect to this post you would like to hear more about. I love to write in a way that ministers to my readers’ specific needs. And I pray that as I am vulnerable with you, you will feel safe being vulnerable with the Lord. He is gentle and patient, and he yearns to hear from you. Let me close with this wonderful passage I memorized from Matt.11:28-30. Jesus called and said, “Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am lowly and humble of spirit and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus wants to help you carry your sorrows and concerns!
Thanks for joining us in this post. I pray we have blessed you.