Yearning for God

Prayer for the Christian is Yearning. To yearn means to “long for or to want something.” I would say to yearn is to desire desperately to be with someone. In the Beatitudes, Jesus said, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6). Maturing Christians are desperate to hear from God. The only way to develop a hunger for the things of God is to communicate with Him in prayer.

Spiritual hunger is the opposite of physical hunger. Physically, the more I eat, the less I will want to eat. Believe it or not, I will eventually lose my appetite if I continue to eat. Seafood Restaurants know this. They have all you can eat specials. They bring out all the “fixins” first—coleslaw, hushpuppies, beans. Then, they bring the catfish or shrimp. By the time you’ve eaten all the preliminaries, you’re almost full. So, you don’t eat as much catfish or shrimp as you expected. There’s a limit to everyone’s appetite.

However, in our spiritual lives, the more we partake of the things of God the more we will desire. The more we pray, the more we will desire to pray. That’s why we don’t need to wait until we “feel like” praying. We will not have a desire to pray until we have faithfully pressed on in prayer. The more I pray, the hungrier I will be for time with God. If I’m not yearning to pray, I haven’t been praying enough.