Reset Your Spiritual Cravings, with Kristen Wetherell

If you love God’s Word but don’t always desire it, it might be time to reset your spiritual cravings! In this episode of Grounded, guest Kristen Wetherell joins the hosts to share how you can approach Scripture in ways that will feed your soul. 

Connect with Kristen

Instagram: @kristen_wetherell 
Twitter: @KLWetherell
Website: https://kristenwetherell.com/

Episode Notes

• Help for the Hungry Soul book by Kristen Wetherell: https://amzn.to/44YHKvs
• Heaven Rules book and discussion guide by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: https://www.reviveourhearts.com/donate/heaven-rules-and-guide/

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Erin Davis: You are hungry today, and I'm not talking about that grumbling that might be happening in your stomach as you hear my voice. I'm Erin Davis, this is Grounded. We're here every week to give you hope and perspective. 

And this morning I'm here to remind you that even more than you may be craving a hot cup of coffee, or maybe even a warm croissant (that sounds pretty good as I'm saying it), you were born with an appetite for God. So, how do we get that filled? 

You know, we love God's Word around here. That's part of staying grounded as we stay grounded in God's Word. And we know that you love God's Word. You tell us that week after week, but if we're being honest, we don't always crave it. Our goal this morning is to reset our spiritual appetites together. 

Kristen Wetherell is our guest this morning. If you are a Grounded fan who has been watching us for very long at all, you've probably heard that name before. She's been with us before. But here she is this morning. She's here to help us with our spiritual cravings. And this really is an episode that we would love for you to share, because we are all born hungry for God. We all have that ache for Him. We all need our spiritual appetites reset. 

So hit that share button. Send it out to your small group in a text, however you want to share is fine. But please help us spread the word that Kristen is here. This is going to be a strong episode. I just know it. 

And you might have noticed I'm all by myself so far. Dannah is in the Dominican Republic doing some ministry. We miss her very much. But Portia is here with me, and she is going to do what she does so well, which is bring us some good news. She'll be here in just a second. But as she's warming up to be our ray of sunshine, I want you to watch this very short clip.

Newscast: Thousands packed Neville arena for a night of worship. When it was ending, one student wanted to be baptized. But without a tub crowd started gathering at Hist Lake at Auburn's Red Barn, where roughly 200 people gave their life to Christ, even head football coach Hugh Freeze got in the water to help

Coach Freeze: The message of unity saying we are part of the body of Christ. You're never alone. 

11:54 - Good News (with Portia)

Portia Collins: Amen to that. Amen to you are never alone. What you just watched is a clip of something that had happened on the campus of Auburn University last week after a campus worship program called Unite Auburn. After that event, one student came forward wanting to be baptized. And as you heard, there was no baptismal available. So, the students gravitated towards the lake, where more than 200 college students were baptized. 

Considering today's topic, let's pause for a moment and consider why those students decided to follow Jesus' example in baptism. 

Because they were hungry, they were hungry for more than what the world has to offer. They were hungry to live for something bigger than themselves. They were hungry to see God move in their generation. And God did what only God can do. He filled them to overflowing. Oh, just looking at the picture just kind of takes my breath away because this is amazing. And though we have yet to see the global revival that we pray for, God is reviving hearts. He is reviving hearts, and he continues to move on many college campuses. There are so many stories that I've been hearing of as of late, and I am just floored at what God is doing. And above all, you guys already know, we think that this is some good news. 

Erin: Revival is always good news.

Portia: Yes. 

Erin: And seeing young people surrender their lives to the Lord is good news. I got some of those Jesus goosebumps when you were talking and sharing that good news story. Do you mind if I add a little extra good new P? This is kind of personal good news. 

Portia: Do it. Give it to me. 

Erin: All right. It's in the vein of what Portia just shared. I didn't know I was gonna be able to share this until yesterday. But our youngest son Ezra, we call him Ezzy, you've seen him from time to time here on Grounded. He's just five. And so, he is not a student at Auburn yet. But he did give his heart to Jesus this week. He and I were eating lunch. He was eating macaroni and cheese like five-year-olds do. He looked up at me with big old crocodile tears in his eyes and said, “Mom, Jesus died on the cross for my sins.” 

And I said, “That's right, Buddy.” I'm getting choked up just thinking about it. So, we over the course of several days had a conversation with it. He does understand, and he insisted on getting what he calls “babatized.” 

So yesterday in church, our sweet boy, his daddy put him under the waters. He was baptized in front of everybody. He repeated a good confession. It was a good day. You want to see a picture? I'm not gonna show you the picture of him actually getting baptized because I won't be able to stand it. It was just too sweet. But here he is afterwards; ready for this smile? Oh my goodness.

Portia: Babatized

Erin: “I got baptized today.” He immediately became a little evangelist. I mean, he has told everyone who will listen, “I got babatized. I'm following Jesus.” And so it's a great, great, great day. 

I love it. I love it. Give my sweet Ezzy hug and a kiss from Auntie Portia.

Erin: I will for sure. Thanks for letting me share that. Well, let's get grounded with God's people. Kristen Wetherell is a pastor's wife. She's a mom of three. She's a writer. She's a Bible teacher. But she's also my friend. And so, I'm eager to catch up with Kristen and talk about our spiritual appetites. Welcome back to Grounded, friend.

15:54 - Grounded with God's People (Kristen Wetherell)

Kristen Wetherell: Oh, it's a joy to be here. I'm so happy to hear about your son. That's amazing. Right? My eyes were filling with tears too. Praise God! 

Erin: It was the best, best day. So exciting. 

I want to describe something that I think we've all thought at some point. In fact, a friend of mine just said this to me. She said that there must be more to life than this. What's really going on in our souls when we have that feeling that craving? What do you think Kristen?

Kristen: Yeah, well, I mean, I hear that. And I think for me too, even as a believer, a follower of Jesus. I feel that every single day, right? 

Erin: Yeah. 

Kristen: And so, what we're feeling is this tension within the human heart, within the believing human heart, between faith and sight. Right between this desire that God gave me when He created me to walk with Him and to be satisfied by Him fully by Him alone. And yet, here I am looking to all these other sources of pseudo satisfaction to try and fill me up. It's just the constant battle of the human heart. Absolutely. 

Erin: Yeah. Me too. And that's why I wanted to start there. Because I think sometimes we can think we're the only one that feels that way or something's wrong with us. And even as believers, but you're right, there's a craving there for the Lord.

You wrote this beautiful book Help for the Hungry Soul. I devoured it—pun intended. I mean, I just couldn't put it down. So good. It's not a how-to read the Bible, which those are good things. It's so great to have those tools. But those are readily available. I think we know what a lot of them are. It's a why of Bible reading. What's the difference between a how-to and a why-to?

Kristen: Well, the why gets to the heart. Our senior pastor has said, the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. And that's what you and I were just talking about. We don't desire the right things; we don't desire the Lord as we ought to. And that's something that I see in my own heart. If this is the very words of life that God has given to me, why do I not want to be in it? 

Not just my heart, but the women in my small group, it feels more like a supposed to, than a get to. And so I think it's important for us to draw that out and just say, “Lord, why is it that my desires are wayward?” And, and how-tos are great. I want to know how to study my Bible. That's how we can know the Lord better. But, Lord, why would you give me this Word to draw me to yourself, I mean, it's going to undergird and motivate everything that we do in the work.

Erin: So good. We have to rightly acknowledge our soul hunger in order for us to rightly address it. And so that's so good. In the book you tell us to plead for holy hunger? That sounds like a really beautiful thought. Why do we need to plead for holy hunger?

Kristen: Yeah, well, I think it's really easy for me to believe that because I have a book in front of me which it is a book, I should just be able to open it and go out and on my own strength and see the things about the Lord that I should be seeing and understand more about myself. But yeah, while it is a book, there is a supernatural reality going on within this Book. 

It's that the God of the universe is actually using a physical book to reveal Himself, which when you stop to think about it is so gracious of Him. Yeah, it's so gracious that a God that I don't deserve to hear from because I've rebelled against Him and rejected His words in my heart, would still give them to me in the form of a book that I can pick up in touch with my fingers, and see with my eyes. 

And so, what a gift we have in the Word. Yet, it can be really hard to actually motivate ourselves to pick up this Book. That's where the prayer comes in. Because we come helpless, we come, like Peter says, like, like newborn infants longing for the pure spiritual milk. And so, we have an opportunity to contact God and say, okay, so the obstacle is, I don't actually want what I should want. I don't actually love who I should love the most. So, create the hunger in me, Lord, because you're the God who shines light. You're the God who does miracles. If You can raise Your Son Jesus from the dead, then You can revive my heart. And You can give me the hunger that I need to desire Your Word.

Erin: Yeah, I mean, there's a practical action right there is that. And without praying first, our Bible study groups don't want to open our Bibles together without praying first. We don't want to open the Bible for ourselves without saying, “Lord, give me a holy hunger for what I'm about to ingest here and help out because my appetites are misdirected.” So that's so good. 

You give not just a why-to, there are some definite hows, and one of them you talk about focusing on Jesus. How does focusing on Jesus in our reading of God's Word change our spiritual appetites?

Kristen: Well, the whole Bible is about Jesus. And maybe you're listening, and you've never actually heard that before. Or maybe you're listening and it's really good news, because it means that the entire Bible is God's Word, and the entire Bible is entirely relevant to us. I love the story in Luke 24 where we see Jesus. He's just died. So, His followers are feeling despondent about this, and they buried Him. And they're hearing rumblings of the reality that maybe He's been raised to life, the tomb is empty. Some women have seen Him. What is this about? 

And two of His disciples are walking on the road to Emmaus just talking about these things. And it says that Jesus appeared to Him. It says, the beginning with Moses and all the prophets, which is kind of an overarching way to say the whole Old Testament. 

He interpreted to the disciples in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. So right there we have the Son of God telling us that the Word of God is about Him. 

Erin: Yeah. 

Kristen: And Erin, how many days do I approach my Bible as a list of things to check off? Or some knowledge to gain, or solution to my problems, but I'm missing communing with a person? 

Erin: Yeah. 

Kristen: And when we come to Christ, and we ask Him, “Lord, give me eyes to see that You are risen and alive right now in heaven, and that You dwell in me by Your Spirit, and that You're in this Word,” that changes the way that we approach the Scriptures. We don't want to miss Jesus in Scripture as a whole. He wants us to commune with Him.

Erin: So good. I think one of the greatest tragedies could be somebody who sees Scripture as merely an academic textbook, or like you said, just a checklist. They don't know that the person of Jesus is being revealed in it. If you as we're talking, you think, Okay, my appetites are off, which will happen, that looking for Jesus is such a great step. 

There's lots of mixed definitions of meditation. You address meditation in your book Meditating on Scripture. So how do we meditate on Scripture in ways that will change our appetites for God's Word?

Kristen: Yeah, well, the definition of meditation that we often think of is kind of the Eastern religious definition, which is emptying of the mind, clear your thoughts. While the Christian definition is fill your mind with God's thoughts. 

Erin: That’s good. 

Kristen: So instead, we're opening Scripture. We want to be filling our minds with the words so that it will stick with us throughout the day, so that we can keep meditating on it, and keep communing with the Lord and thinking His thoughts after Him. 

There really is a connection in Scripture. You'll see this a lot in the Psalms, particularly Psalm 119, which is all about reviving a love and a hunger for the Word, but a connection between meditation and delight and meditating on God's Word. And by His Spirit, He helps my heart delight in His Words and in Him. 

That delight causes me to crave more. So, I go back, and I meditate more, which causes more delight. It's just this cycle right? Of God's goodness. 

So I think that's just a sweet grace that He's given to us. You know, He is our life, His Word is our life. I love what Isaiah says in Isaiah 55. The connection there is, come everyone who thirsty, come to the waters. And then God says, “Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves and rich food.” So how do we hunger for the Lord? As we listen to Him, we get in His Word. We eat per se, right? We eat His Words, and He stirs up our hearts to delight in it. There's a connection there. I think it's gracious of God to give us that.

Erin: Yeah, so true. I say it this way, you'll never love the Word less by reading it more. That's not how it works there. The more you read it, the more you crave it. If you wait to crave it, to open it, you might never open it. But if you just make the choice to know that the food there is rich, it's gonna satisfy you. You're right, He will satisfy you more and more through His Word. 

There's something that happens in my body in the physical that I think parallels here when I travel, or it's the holidays or something like that the weekend even sometimes, and my eating routines shift. It doesn't take long at all for my appetites to change. 

So, the more junk I eat, the more junk I crave. And the reverse is true, the more vegetables I eat, and more I crave. I think like I said, there's a parallel there. What are some of the junk that you look to or you see other women looking to? And have you seen that shift your spiritual appetites?

Kristen: Yeah. Well, the junk can be deceptive because it doesn't always look or feel like junk.

Erin: Right. 

Kristen: For me, it's not usually junk. You know, I would say I’m pretty self disciplined when it comes to entertainment—television, although I could turn to those things. I think for a lot of us, it's around flicks. It's social media scrolling factor, right. But it could also be obviously good things. It could be for me, it's the to-do list. It's what do I need to start doing today? To be productive and to feel purposeful? When God is my purpose, if I don't start my day abiding in Him, none of those other things are going to satisfy me. He made me to walk with Him. Not to check off my to-dos.

I think that we can also turn to other forms of escape other forms of distraction. And I think that our circumstances can also be distracting and discouraging. Many of us are walking through suffering, or walking through grief, and find it hard to peel ourselves out of bed in the morning, you know, let alone get in God's Word. 

I think the enemy would love to use that to keep us from satisfying our souls on God alone. 

And yet, His Word is the very weapon that we need to fight and to persevere and to and to hold on to God as He holds on to us. 

So, I would say it looks different for all of us. But identifying that, asking God, “Lord, search me know my heart. What are the things the obstacles that would keep me from Your Word? Would You show me so that by Your strength I can walk through those and overcome them?”

Erin: Yeah, I feel deeply convicted by that. Because there are some circumstances in my life right now that I think once those are resolved or ended, then I will not have this ache anymore. And the reality is, there'll be something else, and they're not bad things. You're right. They don't necessarily look like junk food in my life. But anything I'm thinking will curb that hunger for the life God's called me to will ultimately, it will be junk. It's not nutrient rich in the way the Lord intended. 

I know, there's a woman listening right now; she's made it this far into the Grounded episode. If we were to turn it over to her and ask her to be honest, she would say, “I have no appetite for God's Word.” Now she's probably a follower of Jesus. She may even be a woman who's had a rich appetite for God's Word in the past, but today, she just doesn't have any appetite for God's Word. How would you encourage her today?

Kristen: Yeah, I would say, That's me. I go through seasons of and it. I recognize that which is good, because then I think I can more quickly bring it to the Lord. But I go through seasons where I enjoy what I call a dry spot. I'm just in a dry spell. And my encouragement to you would be to keep coming and keep clinging. Because there will be times in the Christian life where we can sense God seems far away, our emotions feel flat. And yet we know because He has given us His own Son, that He is nearer than our very breath. 

And so, we keep coming. We keep clinging. I think we trust that every deposit adds up. There's a promise and in Isaiah 55 God says, “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and water the earth making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth, it shall not return to me empty. But it shall accomplish that which I purpose.” And that's a magnificent promise to hang on to, and we don't feel anything.

Okay, God, You are promising me that this is not a waste. Even if I can't feel your nearness, even if I can't see the fruit of this, it helped me to keep coming. Every small deposit adds up. And so, we may not see it in the present. But who knows what the Lord is storing in your own soul, or further down the road, even to pour out to other people who need His Word and who need Him. So we just don't know what He's doing. But there's a promise there that we can cling to.

Erin: So good. Keep coming. Keep clinging. Kristen has spent a lot of time in the book talking about the importance of getting in God's Word together and community in the local church. We didn't have time for that today. But I will say if you're here, you're part of a community. And you can right now drop it in the chat. “I have no hunger for God's Word. My appetites are off. As Kristen has been talking, I've realized I have that flatness, that dryness that she's been describing.” You're going to be then surrounded by sisters who immediately will acknowledge that and pray for you and encourage you. 

And so, I would encourage you to press into each other and acknowledge if you're not hungry for God's Word, you're hungry for something else today. And know that the Lord really does want to satisfy you. 

Again, thank you for this beautiful book. It really is beautiful in every way, Help for the Hungry Soul, we're going to drop a link to it because I know you're going to grab it. It’s a great gift, great thing to do with a group of women. Thanks for being on Grounded, Kristen, we love you.

Kristen: Love you too, Erin. And thanks for having me.

Erin: Yep. Portia. I don't know where else we could go from here except the Word of God. So, I'm so grateful that you are ready. Our appetites have been ramped up. We're hungry for it. And so, get us grounded in God's Word girl.

32:26 - Grounded in God's Word (with Portia)

Portia: I'm ready for it. As you guys were talking, I was thinking, our hunger for God's Word is, or lack thereof is, an indicative of our hunger or lack thereof for God in relationship with Him. There's a clear connection there. 

So, this morning, we're gonna go to John 6. If you got your Bibles, I got my pretty Bible today, y’all.

If you get your Bibles turn with me to John 6, and we're gonna pick up at verse 26. Let me back up and give you a little bit of context. Jesus is talking to the crowds, those people who have been following Him around, watching Him perform miracles, learning and listening to His sermon, the sermon that He's given on the mount. They are hearing all the things He's saying. They've been following Him around. And so then this is where we're picking up, and He turns to the crowd. 

And Jesus answered, saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.” 

If you’ve got your pencil, and I would encourage you to underlying that line, “because God the Father has set His seal of approval on Him.” 

“What can we do to perform the works of God?" They asked, Jesus replied, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 

 “What sign, then, are you going to do so that we may see and believe you?" they asked. "Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, Moses didn’t give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." Then they said, "Sir, give us this bread always."

"I am the bread of life," Jesus told them, "no one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again." 

God's Word for God's people. In this passage, Jesus is challenging the temporal nature of our desires. Many of the people who followed and saw Jesus did so not for the transformative spiritual truths that He taught. They did it for the immediate satisfaction of their physical desires. 

In this particular case, it was their hunger. He was providing bread and fish. And they wanted that in essence, these people were seeking Jesus because He was a means to an end. They wanted more of the miracle meals, but they did not want the One who was actually performing the miracles.

Here in this passage, we see how Jesus contrasted the perishable nature of physical food with the eternal sustenance that He offers. 

When Jesus admonished the crowd, remember, I told you to underline this: to work for food that lasts for eternal life. He pointed them towards the spiritual nourishment and salvation that only He can provide. This was more than just the call to recognize the short-term earthly satisfaction of filling their hunger with food. He was calling them to a deeper and more meaningful relationship with Him. His figurative language here was actually a literal invitation for them to know Him and to genuinely be in relationship with Him. 

Unfortunately, the crowd's response, as you see, we see this three times. They just miss it. The crowds response to His invitation further reflected their limited understanding of spiritual things. They asked, “What can we do to perform the works of God?” Instead of focusing on Jesus as a true Savior sent to accomplish the purpose of God, they completely missed His point to seek Him for fulfillment. 

And again, Jesus is patient and responding to them and instructing them. He told them that the true work is to believe in the One God sent him. Again, he is pointing to Himself, Jesus, the Christ. And yet, they still miss the spiritual nature of what Jesus is saying. 

The crowd now demands a sign. They reference the manner that God provided for the Israelites in the wilderness. And again, Jesus is patient and responding, and He does the same thing. He points back to Himself. He points out that it wasn't Moses, but it was God who provided for the people in the wilderness. And just like God provided manna for them, God now was offering these people who are following Jesus, He was offering them true bread from heaven, a sustenance not just for the body but for the soul.

When the people ask for this bread, Jesus brings it on home. I think this is where I feel like He's like the one two punch. He delivers that profound statement. They say, “We want this bread.” He says, “I am the bread of life.” If there was any confusion amongst the crowd, before Jesus was now removing all doubt with this statement. He was publicly declaring His divinity and purpose. 

He was making plain that just as bread sustains the body, physical bread sustains the body, believing in Him, sustains the soul, believing in Him, Jesus was making the point that He is our ultimate need—not food, not works, not signs, Him, Jesus Christ. 

Let's dive in a little bit and apply this. What does this mean for us today? In our lives it is easy to chase the temporary satisfactions of life. We are constantly bombarded with messages urging us to seek instant gratification, whether it's through food, material possessions, social media likes, our job performance, or other fleeting pleasures. You name it, but it's all temporal. And these things never really provide the fulfillment that we seek through God's Word.

As we've read together today, we are reminded to seek the eternal over the temporal. We are encouraged to nourish our souls, and to find ultimate fulfillment in Christ. How do we do that? We've heard from Kristen and Erin as she interviewed her by partaking in the Word of God. This is where He reveals who He is. This is where we deepen our relationship with Him. We can't find that in the things of this world. 

And so, I want to leave you with this to think on this week. Take some time this week, and be intentional about reminding yourself what truly matters. Temptations will rise, and you will probably find yourself trying to fill God-sized voids with earth-sized things. 

In those moments, I encourage you to speak these words, “Jesus, You are the Bread of Life. You have all that I need.” Reciting this truth. I pray that you will remember over and over, that you ruminate on the truth, that it is only through anchoring our lives in Jesus Christ, that our deepest hungers are satisfied, and that our souls find true rest. Amen.

Erin: Amen. How many times have I been like the crowd and just missed it? But Jesus is what I need. You said something that I don't want to rush past, so I'm good for us to slow down for a minute. If you said that in the week ahead, we might find ourselves trying to fill God-sized voids with earth-sized things. 

As Kristen said, that earth-sized thing could be a good thing. It's not that they're all something that we would put in the bad category, but they're not going to fit. And so sisters who are watching and listening, let's not fill those God-sized voids with earth-sized things this week, because it's gonna make us hungry. I don't know how many weeks I've gotten to the end of the week and just have been as hungry as I started because I chewed on all the wrong things over the course of the week. So thanks, P. Thanks for taking us to church, as you like to say. 

Portia: Praise the Lord. 

People like to have some tools in their tool belt. I want to give you some good stuff. We want to give you the tools to help you stay grounded. Here are two words that every hungry heart needs to hear. I bet you know what it is. It's not hope and perspective. It's Heaven rules. This is the part of the episode where we point you to the tools to help you stay grounded this week. 

But before I do that, I want to give you a little second helpings of good news. So are you ready? Rhonda is the mom of one of our team members for the Revive Our Hearts team. And last September, Rhonda, just saw a photo. Rhonda left our True Woman ’22 with a copy of Heaven Rules. Okay, this book, as you know, is written by our very own Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. She left with a copy tucked in her suitcase. And, you know, that was more than a year ago. And guess what? Rhonda never got to finish the book. And here's why. Because she gave it away. In fact, she has given away eleven copies of the book to friends, church members, complete strangers. Today, she's on page 121, which for me is a good thing because you keep giving it away. She's still reading it. She's still given that book away. And why? I think it's because as Kristen shared earlier, focusing on Jesus our King grows our appetite for Him. But it also grows our appetite for others to find their hope in Him. And she is sharing that. 

So, you can get a copy of Heaven Rules when you give a gift of any amount to the ministry of Revive Our Hearts this month. And we have also created this lovely discussion guide. I don't have mine near me. But it is a great discussion guide so that you can actually read this book together with another one. That is one of the things that Kristin suggested today was actually reading and studying in community. This is going to help you grow your appetite for God's Word. And so, we'll drop a link so you can get your copy and start giving it away. Which is the link in the chat for you to do that, now.

Erin: I need a friend like Rhonda that's always given me the good stuff. I love that she knows people are hungry, and she’s just giving it away.

Portia: I am that friend. I give away so many books, like I am totally debt free. Yeah.

Erin: I had a phase there where I was always getting a new Bible because I was always giving my Bible away. I've held on to mine for a little while now. But that's a neat way to address people's soul hunger, which everybody has. The chat’s been active this morning. I want to read a couple of these.

Hello Megan. She says she doesn't think it's an accident that the weapon we need to fight the devil is often what the devil drives us away from it. And isn't that the truth? It is our sword. And so we should wake up expecting there to be some opposition there. 

And Terry, when you were teaching Portia, Terry said, “Throw my shoe exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point.” That’s code for this is the good stuff. God’s stretching us; God's growing us. 

This thinking that we've been talking about of hunger and need, God's been a little bit all up in my business about it lately. I read this daily devotional New Morning Mercies from Paul David Tripp. Last week there was this sentence in it, and I underlined it. I thought, Oh, I'm gonna share that with my Grounded sisters. He said, “You see only people who acknowledge how deep their need is, and who admit that they have no ability whatsoever to meet that need on their own. Get excited about the grace that meets every one of their spiritual needs.” And then later he said, “Hopelessness is the doorway to hope.” 

So it's just even in acknowledging I'm hungry. I naturally want to feed myself with all kinds of things that aren't good for me. And I need you. That's when the Spirit of God rushes in and meets that hunger through His Word. 

So, again, one more interaction opportunity. If you this morning are feeling needy, if you’re feeling an ache inside your chest, that's hunger. That's soul hunger. I would encourage you to just confess that to each other, just put in the chat right now. I am hungry. I can't multitask. So I can't do it right this minute, but I promise I'll get in there and do it later. Because I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I have a God-sized hunger and earth-sized things aren't going to fill it. And so, we just want to encourage you to acknowledge that need this week, and then ask God to fill it.

Portia: Amen, amen. 

Erin: Are you hungry P?

Portia: I'm hungry. I am hungry, and I am looking to the Lord for soul sustenance. It's such a good episode, such a timely episode today. I love being able to do this with you, Erin. Grateful.

Erin: It’s a privilege.

Portia: Well, next week's guest says it's possible to build stronger relationships with God and others. One question at a time. I'm definitely intrigued. I'm intrigued. Are you intrigued? 

Erin: I'm intrigued.

Portia: I hope you guys are.

Erin: I’m hungry and intrigued. 

Portia: Hurry back hurry back next week. We've got a great episode lined up for you. In the meantime let's wake up with hope together next week on Grounded.

Erin: Grounded audio is powered by Skype. Grounded is a production of Revive Our Hearts calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ

 

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