He Satisfies the Longing Soul

In yesterday’s Tuesday morning Bible study I do at the local jail, I only had one inmate attend. This gave me an opportunity to hear more of his story and seek to bring God’s word to bear on what he shared. He had recently been through a very dark and depressing period of wondering how he was going to make it through his remaining years of incarceration. The Lord graciously began to bring him out of it when he received a letter from his estranged daughter. She reconnected with him after previously saying that she was done with him. This was food for his soul.

He also spoke at length about his experience in the jail after coming to faith in Christ. He said he was at a loss because he no longer felt bitterness toward the police officers who shot him 14 times, he no longer was seeking revenge against his ex-fiance who ran off with the money and the children. He had forgiven them all and it was a strange feeling. He didn’t really know what to feel because anger and bitterness had filled him so much of his life, and now he wanted to be filled with something else. 

We looked at Jesus’ words in Luke 6:21, “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.” 

Psalm 107:9 also came to mind, “For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.”

How amazing it was to talk with this brother about the experience of being emptied of malice, bitterness, and hatred, then longing to be filled with Christ and his righteousness. He is a different man.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. This season reminds us of Jesus’ 40 days and nights in the wilderness fasting and satisfying his whole person with nothing but the Father and the Spirit. In his book Ancient Future Time, Robert Webber reminds us that Lent, “calls us back to God, back to basics, back to the spiritual realities of life. It calls on us to put to death the sin and the indifference we have in our hearts toward God and our fellow persons. And it beckons us to enter once again into the joy of the Lord – the joy of a new life born out of a death to the old life.”

What are you hungry for friends? What are you longing for? 

Pastor Irwyn