Let God Feed You

I knew I needed God to consume me more than my life currently was, but I didn’t know how to get more of Him.

12 years ago I was a normal, everyday mom, in the midst of bill paying, carpool driving, dinner burning, and working in the margins. My writing career was already in full swing, but my relationship with the Lord needed some attention. Sometimes when you get so busy inspiring everyone else, you regrettably ignore your own spiritual needs.

So when I had just authored a new book to help people deepen their walk with God but felt particularly far away from Him, I experienced the weight of spiritual distance. Kneeling on the carpet of my office floor, I felt a sense to go lower, and soon, my face was touching the rough carpet fibers, longing to have my outward posture match my internal surrender.

Okay God, deal with me. I said. I won’t stop you this time.

I was intentional, if not still a bit mechanical. My heart wanted to want God. But my hands remained full of the clutter of busyness, distraction, and divided attention on other loves. This made me come to God with a bit more of a sigh and a white flag waving mentality and less of an understanding that His best work in me to help remove lesser loves (aka idols) in my life was for me, which was something to get excited about.

We often think we are doing God favors when we finally make room for Him, but in reality, it is God’s love that creates the space for us to come to begin with.

Even in my small mentality of surrender, I knew that something from my typical routine of praying to ask for God’s help and going back to my business-as-usual life had to change. Instead of holding anything back this time — giving Him access to the 95% but not that last 5% that was too hard to be open and honest about — I would this time offer to withhold nothing. 

You can have it all, God, I said.

This is a gutsy prayer. It is scary, in fact. But God having it all is not the real risk here. Not giving Him everything is.

(“Wanting God is not a risk. Living without wanting Him is.” -I Want God)

When you think of giving God everything, maybe you are like me and connect it to church. You might think of putting your tithe in a white envelope, like I was taught to do as a little girl, or maybe you think of a missionary serving the Lord faithfully overseas and perhaps even dying for the cause of Christ. That’s giving Him everything, right?

But what about our daily everythings?

Many people start thinking more about this once a year when Lent rolls around. People both in a traditional and non-traditional faith, participate in a Lenten practice. Maybe you are one that takes part in this, or maybe you don’t even know what Lent is all about. Historically, the season of Lent is the forty days before Easter — from Ash Wednesday to Resurrection Sunday. During this time Christians are encouraged to go deeper with God and prepare their hearts through prayer and fasting.

But what Lent really is, at the core?

An opportunity to make more room for God. To release our hands of clutter — the daily “everythings” — to be able to have space for the abundance of Him. When you understand it this way, it takes it from being a religious ritual to an opportunity for revival. After all, isn’t less of us and more of God the key to awaken the dead places inside our soul?

This was certainly what, in my heart, I was hoping for when I asked God to deal with me and told Him He could have it all.

Back then, unknowingly entering into my own personal (and rather untraditional) time of Lent, I began a fasting on multiple levels: from social media (for 30 days), clothes shopping (one year), and physical fasting for the entire time I wrote the book that came as a result of this prayer in my office (3 months). Before that time, I had never fasted from anything.

What God showed me during these times of material and physical depletion cannot be contained on paper. My spiritual insights became heightened. My awareness of the Lord increased. My desire for material things that had once consumed my thoughts decreased profoundly. In every way, my appetite for God increased while taste for my own habits, thoughts and wants began to fade.

Novelist Flannery O’Connor once said, “God is feeding me, and what I’m praying for is an appetite.” I never really understood what that meant until I experienced a time of personal depletion. Without fasting from the things that were constantly making me feel full, I would never have discovered my true appetite for God.

It turns out, the appetite for God is always there, it’s just often masked, muffled, stuffed, stifled, or hidden.

Eventually we will be starved enough that we will cry out for our True Satisfier. Then and only then will we find ourselves on the carpet fibers of our floor, willing to let God have everything.

What if we let Him in, now? How might we begin to be fed in all the ways we’ve ever truly hungered?

If you are wanting to have more of God but don’t know where to start, here are some suggestions:

• Pray an honest, simple prayer that tells God how you feel, even confessing that you don’t know where to start! (I love that God doesn’t judge us for word count or eloquence – He just wants us to bring a sincere heart in prayer to Him.)
• Read a Psalm a day for one week to remind you of our loving, faithful God (Desiring God starts with remembering God, and it’s hard not to fall in love with God when you read Psalms! Ps: Keep going after a week – I think you’ll want to!)
• Listen to some free, short Lent devotionals with Scripture to help your heart be readied for the Lord (available with book purchase at lisawhittle.com/IWantGod)
• Do the 40 Lent Fasts in I Want God to help you with some daily, simple actions to get you moving in the right direction (You can jump in anytime, and you can do these any time of the year, not just during Lent!)

Prayer:

Dear Lord, You are all things good and kind and gracious. I thank You for who You are. Help me want You more. Will you open my eyes to see what I need to let go, give me the courage to let it go, and increase my appetite for You? In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Written for FaithGateway by Lisa Whittle, author of I Want God, copyright Lisa Whittle.

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Your Turn

Are you giving up something for Lent (starting any kind of fast tomorrow)? If not, why not try is and ask God to speak clearly to you? Lean into Him and let Him feed you when there’s room during fasting food, or that thing, or that experience. We want to want God more, right? So, let’s go for it! ~ Laurie McClure, Faith.Full