Soul Cravings

I don’t know about you but if you set me down in front of a TV I will suddenly have cravings for a bag of crisps, a bar of galaxy and a large class of diet coke!  Yes, I know, the Diet Coke is my pitiful attempt to dampen the guilt of indulging in all that unhealthy rubbish I have just ate.  Some people will describe it as comfort food, whatever that really means but is easy to fall into a pattern of so-called comfort food to satisfy our cravings.

To people who know me well it will be no surprise to them for me to say that I am not the biggest fan of reading.  However there are a few authors who I just love to get into their books.  One of these is Erwin McManus.  Now Erwin (I guess that sounds as if we are best buds, but I have never met him) is the lead pastor of Mosaic in Los Angeles, California and I love his slant and take on the future of church and how we connect and relate to people and to God.  He says in one of his books called Soul Craving that for many of us it’s more famine than feast when it comes to being truly fulfilled.

We seem happy to get by on the scraps or tiny portions of spiritual food rather than feasting on the banquet that God has laid on for us.  It is so easy to become malnourished spiritually.  I am totally convinced that God has placed soul cravings within us that we all long to find but on so many occasions we look in the wrong place.  Your soul longs for God but unfortunately you just don't know it yet.  We seem to spend our lives grabbing everything we can get and yet there remains a vast emptiness within us.  Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he said, "What is it worth to gain the whole world, but to lose your soul?"

Is this describing you or me?  Spending our lives searching for things, desires and longings that will somehow fill this deep void or emptiness that we need to fill.  We gorge ourselves on all the rubbish that is pumped out to us from society and still we hunger and we long for something to satisfy us.  I suppose in all of us there is something inside us that keeps pulling us toward God and another part of us that wants to pull in the other direction.  It is like the ultimate hug of war event but a war that is raging in our everyday lives!  Our soul is craving for the intimacy that we have lost with our creator.  It makes perfect sense that if we re created for a relationship with the Creator of the universe then we would search for that, we would try to reach out to him and we may even find him!

I have realized that life without God is starvation of the soul.  Our souls ache and crave for God.  Not a little bit of him but all of him. Our soul is craving for our relationship with God to be restored to what he created us for.  Our soul is longing for the fuel from God to ignite our lives and make us complete. God is waiting within us to be discover and to fill completely the void we have in our lives.  Jesus has told us that if we seek him then he will be found and the longing of your soul will start to be satisfied.  Day by day we should be craving more and more of God and not just a brief encounter with him but encounters that takes root deep down in our souls.

I believe that if we take the time to journey to the depths of your soul you will never be disappointed as you will find there a God and Father who has amazing plans and blessings waiting for you.  Our soul knows there is a greater purpose for your life than the all the hype and pressure that society tells us we need to find happiness, security and success.

Search deep, feed the cravings of your soul by rediscovering an intimacy with God and you will discover a God sized dream waiting to unfold and become your future.  Our soul craves for love, faith and hope, which can only be satisfied by God.  I pray that as you continue to respond to the cravings of your soul you will awaken within you the person that God intended you to be.