Life is full of choices as we seek to find fulfillment and satisfaction. These choices are fueled by our cravings. Cravings are things we “ask for, require, demand, beg, and search out”. Cravings are like an unquenchable thirst that is never satisfied. There is always one more thing that is needed to calm the needy heart. The heart that is seeking value and security in an unpredictable and unreliable broken world. The world is not able to fulfill the unquenchable needs of a broken heart. The following scripture highlights the essential sources of cravings.
1 John 2:15-16 New Living Translation (NLT)
15 Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. 16 For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.
Cravings of an needy heart include: Physical Cravings, desires to fulfill appetites for food and drink and sexual senses. Material Cravings seeking fulfillment in accumulation of material wealth. Significance Cravings desiring recognition and elevation.
Henri Nouwen explains how these cravings are like addictions:
“Our addictions make us cling to what the world proclaims as the keys to self-fulfillment: accumulation of wealth and power, attainment of status and admiration; lavish consumption of food and drink, and sexual gratification without distinguishing between lust and love,” “These addictions create expectations that cannot but fail to satisfy our deepest needs… I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.” Henri Nouwen
In Genesis 3 Eve was tempted and gave into her cravings for eating food, something that was pleasing to the eye, and to have wisdom like God. In contrast Jesus was tempted, by Satan, in Matthew 4, to break his fast and eat food, own kingdoms and demonstrate His significance by having Angels rescue him from a fall. Eve focused on her craving. Jesus focused on His truth, His identity as the Son of God and did not need or crave for anything the world could offer.
God created us to crave Him. Only a connection with Him will quench and fulfill our needs. Our insecurities alter our perceptions of what we need. Knowing and realizing God’s presence in our life will bring clarity to the focus of our perceptions. We will begin to perceive how valued and protected we are by the creator of the universe.
We must open the “eyes” of our wounded heart and become aware of His reality in our life.
O God and Father, I repent of my sinful preoccupation with visible things.
The world has been too much with me.
Thou hast been here and I knew it not.
I have been blind to Thy presence.
Open my eyes that I may behold Thee in and around me.
For Christ’s sake,
Amen.
A. W. TOZER
To satisfy our cravings we must seek the water of our souls, the presences of God, the author of true Hope.
Psalm 105:4Amplified Bible (AMP)
4 Seek, inquire of and for the Lord, and crave Him and His strength (His might and inflexibility to temptation); seek and require His face and His presence [continually] evermore.
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