For he satisfies the longing soul and the hungry soul he fills with good things. (Psalm 107:9, ESV)
I have a question for you today, friend. Are you satisfied with your round yesterday? If you didn’t play yesterday, how about the last time you played? Were you satisfied with the way you played? Even though I no longer play golf just for golf, I am seldom satisfied with how I play. I long to play better. Do you?
Where do you go for the improvement you desire? As players, we never quite get there, do we? The answer to my questions will vary widely depending on your skill level, age, and passion for the game. And perhaps you don’t play at all anymore, or maybe you’ve never played golf. So the far more critical question is: How do I satisfy the longing in my heart for peace with God?
The answer to that question is found in today’s verse. God himself puts a hunger in the unbeliever’s heart for righteousness. They are drawn by the Father’s irresistible love and convicted of their sinfulness and need for a Savior.
Through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, they place their faith in Christ’s sacrificial work. Then the person is born of the Spirit of God, and their thirsty soul that has been aching for peace with God is satisfied.
Those that seek the Lord with their whole heart discover over time that he is indeed the one that satisfies the thirsty soul and calms the troubled heart.
But God also instills a deep hunger in the heart of the Christian. So, as Paul says in Philippians three, they reach a point in their lives when they, too, cry out: “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”
We discover that this life is a day-by-day journey where sweet fellowship with the Father can be realized, and the Lord Jesus becomes more real to us and so much more precious than on the day we first believed. “Blessed are those… who seek the Lord with their whole heart.” (Psalm 119:2)
Those that seek our Lord with their whole heart discover over the years that He is indeed the one that satisfies the thirsty soul and calms the troubled heart. Christ alone is the living water, and those who know Him discover Him as a well of refreshing spiritual water that ensures our hearts of everlasting life.
It is not the self-reliant who are refreshed with living water and feasts on the bread of heaven but the ones who, like the exhausted deer, pants for the refreshing water amid a dry and dusty desert. (See Psalm 42)
When we seek after God with all our hearts, we find satisfaction in the Lord. But my friend, as much as we try and strive and desire to find the perfect peace that satisfies this life, we are faced with the reality that we are not home yet. We are, as C.S. Lewis put it in Mere Christianity, “made for another world.”
Perhaps you are in a season like me—My soul, like David’s, thirsts for the Lord. Cling to him with me today and trust that He will someday fully satisfy your soul and fill you with good things.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, my soul longs for You and is hungry for good things in a world that seems to be spinning out of control. Thank you for your promise to bring us to yourself and fully satisfy us with your very self. In Jesus’ name, Amen.