Appetite for Jesus

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What do I look forward too? I am driven by my appetite...we all are. In the 80s the radio told me everyone was "workin' for the weekend." Since then I have set my sights on a variety of things that would make it all worth it...marriage, a career, pastimes like windsurfing or mountain biking, sharpening a golf game, coaching my kids teams, vacations...the list is so long...but the truth I have stumbled into is that there is only one thing that makes it worth it, there is only one thing I can put all my weight on, all my hope in...only one thing satisfies...it is the God of Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham.

Everything else I have ever put my weight on has eventually become an anchor that has tried to drag me down. Those things can't lift me up for long, and eventually I have to lift them up...giving them more and more just to keep the spark alive...but God, the more I give Him, the more He gives back. Pressed down and running over. If I give Him the little love I have, love grows in me. If I give Him the little time I have, time expands in nearly everything I touch, if I give Him the little commitment I have, I begin to sense His overwhelming commitment to me! What an amazing God. He breathes out stars, and yet counts the feathers on the dove singing outside my window. He shakes the earth, and yet cares about the slightest shaking in my spirit. He knows everything and yet He WANTS to know me.

When I look forward to something less than Him, I miss what would really satisfy me. When I look forward to more of Him in my life, everything else that is good comes with Him, in the right amount and season. I am not saying that it isn't good for me to enjoy the wonder in the world He has created, but for me to truly enjoy anything, I have to make Him the object of my appetite. I am learning that simply asking Him for more hunger and thirst for Him creates this overwhelming appetite for Him, and filling this hunger with encountering Him fills in all the blank spaces. I don't have to carry Him, because He carries me:

Isaiah 46:2 Both the idols and their owners are bowed down. The gods cannot protect the people,

and the people cannot protect the gods. They go off into captivity together.

3 "Listen to me, descendants of Jacob, all you who remain in Israel.

I have cared for you since you were born. Yes, I carried you before you were born. 4 I will be your God throughout your lifetime—

until your hair is white with age

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