Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the desires of my heart. There is a continual battle raging within me. My flesh pulls toward the things of the world while who I am in Christ desires a deeper knowledge of Him. As I have been reading my Bible, I have been especially struck by how the men of Scripture yearned for nothing more than that deeper knowledge of God.
Job 23:12 says, “I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.” As I was pondering that verse, I was incredibly humbled. The man who spoke those words had lost his possessions, his family, and almost everything that defined him in the earthly sense yet he still desired God above all else. God allowed everything that Job held dear to be taken away but that did not change his commitment to God. Through all that happened, Job did not harbor bitterness and anger toward God but actually desired to know God more as is demonstrated by his unfaltering faithfulness. In contrast, I have been blessed with more than I could ever ask for yet it seems that spending time with God is the easiest thing to bump from my schedule.
To Job, the words of God gave a more life sustaining power than did the very food that nourished his body. What a picture. It gives a true illustration of the words “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). No truer words have every been spoken. Physical sustenance is merely a result of the power of God’s Word. My dad has been teaching on Hebrews 1 in our weekly prayer meeting and I have noticed an important parallel. Hebrews 1:1-3 states, “God . . . Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son . . . Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” It is the very words of Christ, God’s son, that upholds all that is. The ground that we stand on, the air we breathe, and the very food we eat is a result of Christ’s sustaining power. Job understood that idea and as a result he desired to know and serve God. Spending time in God’s word should be the last thing to be bumped from my schedule.
To me, that is so humbling. I know and often even ponder the fact that I have my life in Christ but I often forsake that life of Christ. I have such a desire to serve him though I am conflicted because my life so often does not reflect that. I pray that I may become as those saints of old; that I may desire God’s sustaining word above the very food that I eat. May our hearts’ desire be for that “bread of life” that we may truly know our God and Savior; that we may “never hunger” (John 6:35).
