All true desires for God must spring from man’s inner spiritual nature. We have a threefold organism of body, soul and spirit. Each of these parts of our being have their appetites and affections. The appetites of the body are for things outward and material in their nature. The appetites of the mind are largely in sympathy with those of the body, and yet embrace a much larger and loftier range than the five senses, as the mental appetites involve the principle of curiosity, a desire for knowledge, and beauty, and music, and power.  

But deeper down than all these are the appetites and cravings of the spiritual nature. However, these cravings of the inner spirit are never brought into exercise except under the operations of Divine grace. A person living in sin has his spiritual nature in a dormant state, and knows nothing of the capabilities in him of Divine things. The spiritual is by far the strongest of man’s threefold nature when it once becomes thoroughly vitalized and brought into play by the Holy Spirit. The desires of the mind are capable of domineering over those of the body, but the desires of the spirit have in them a capability of far outreaching and overcoming the desires of both the intellect and the body. But as most persons live on the lower plane of their being, they have no conception of the overwhelming power that is possible to their spiritual nature. There are three degrees of desire for God which the heart may have under grace.  

1. The desire for God’s favor. When the soul becomes awakened to its lost and sinful condition, there springs up in the conscience a sad, painful yearning for the favor and sympathy of God. The soul feels conscious of its abasement and of its guilt; it is covered with a sense of shame; it has a painful, lonely feeling, of being out-of-doors in the cold night, shut away from the home friends of the Father’s family.  

The soul at this stage is not able to apprehend the thought of perfect heart purity, neither can it have any proper conception of the purity of the Divine nature. It feels the ban of the law; it has a culprit sensation, a friendless feeling; and it craves for a loving voice, a tender word, a sense of pardon, to be at peace with its Maker. Its instinctive cry is, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” This desire is not so much for God Himself as it is a longing for some expression of God’s compassion. It is a thirst for Divine favor.  

2. A desire for God’s character. This is the thirst which the true believer has in seeking for the full efficacy of the cleansing blood of Jesus. Unlike the former desire, it does not spring out of a sense of guiltiness but out of a consciousness of a deep need of inward purity. The heart at this stage loves God, but finds in itself much remaining self-life— darkness concerning God’s law, weakness in obeying his propensities contrary to the nature of Jesus, and the presence of these inward feelings becomes painful and tiresome to the believer.  

The very love he has for God cries out for more love, but he sees plainly that the very propensities of the heart are just what hinder the inflow of more Divine love. So he comes to loathe the earthly and selfish dispositions of the soul, and grows heart sick over his many failures in rendering a free and loving service to God. There has dawned upon his understanding, by the light of the Spirit, a beautiful glimpse of the purity and the sweetness of the character of Jesus. He is tenderly drawn with this beautiful vision of the Lord, and from that time he cannot rest till pure within. He cries out, “Create in me a clean heart, O God,” “Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow,” “Thy will be done in me as it is in heaven.” This is the form of desire which Jesus referred to when He said, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”  

In the desire for pardon we feel as if we were outdoors, in the stormy night, and we yearn to get inside of our Father’s well-warmed house, and have Him speak kindly to us. But in the second desire for inward cleansing we have a sense of being inside the house with our reconciled Father, but there is a sense of inward unfitness for our surroundings. We yearn for such a perfect and deep internal agreement of our affections and choices to God and His kingdom, that we will feel perfectly free in His home, and blessedly restful in His presence, and calmly joyous in His service. This form of desire for God is a great deal stronger than the desire for His favor, because it is a deeper insight into His character, and is permitted by a personal love for Him. This desire takes a more radical hold upon the deepest parts of our moral nature.  

When a soul becomes possessed of a desire for the pure image of God, for thorough heart-cleansing, it will be continually seeking that state, at home or abroad, in religious meetings or in secular employment, alone or in society. The ordinary incidents and trials of life will serve as stimulants to urge the soul on to its desired haven; it rests only in the cleansing fountain of its Lord.  

3. Desire for God Himself. We long for the Divine personalities, for the loving, complete and unbroken union with God, just as fully as it is possible for our nature to be united to His nature. This stage of desire for God is the crown and glory of our spiritual possibilities. This form of desire is that for which all other desires were made. All other degrees of desire were but preparatory to this desire.  

In this stage of thirsting after God there is a sense of Divine favor and a sweet rest in the cleansing blood of Jesus, an inward sense that the shore lines that bound us are cut, and that we are launching out into the fathomless, boundless ocean of Divine love, light and spiritual understanding. There springs up in the depth of our human spirits a sort of Divine passion to go to the uttermost in the life, and humility, and love of the Divine nature, and to become as perfectly acquainted with the three Divine Persons in the Godhead as it is possible to become while living in the flesh. This desire is pure, and healthy, and inspiring.  

Just as there are different bodily appetites in degree for food, so there are different stages of desire for God. A person who is sick in body often feels a brief, whimsical desire for a certain food, but when his food is brought to him he cannot eat it. So there are souls in a fever state of grace who have spasmodic desires for Divine things, which are the result of a moral, diseased condition. Then there are persons recovering from a long illness who have a ravenous appetite for food, which is abnormal, and indicates a diseased condition. This also has a counterpart in a sort of wild abnormal yearning, in the spiritual state. Then there are persons who are famished by starvation, and whose appetite for food is more than normal. But there is in it a perfectly healthy condition, a normal hunger for food which is accompanied with pure, healthy symptoms; the food will smell sweet; the mouth will water at the sight of the food; and it will have a sweet taste in the mouth.  

So there is a hunger for God which is perfectly pure and normal, and is accompanied by beautiful, healthy symptoms, such as these: everything about God becomes attractive and enticing to the inner spirit; His Word is deep and sweet and rich to the understanding; His will is seen as only an expression of limitless love; His Name is cherished in joyous affection; His character is always unfolding with new charms; and from new points of vision the coming of His kingdom is looked upon as a panacea for this earth’s ills. His personality is cherished with deep and purest friendship; His providence is watched with the highest, careful attention; His guidance is sought in every little detail of life, and God Himself is looked upon as the whole end of existence.  

This is the same desire that David had, when he said, “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.” This is the pure, special desire that burned in the heart of Moses, when he cried to the Lord, “I beseech thee, show me thy glory.” It is that heavenly, angelic craving for God that Paul had when he said he desired to depart and be with Christ, which was far better.  

This form of desire for God is perfectly consistent with being filled with the Holy Spirit—in fact, this desire grows out of the fullness of the Spirit. It is through this perfect desire that the Spirit is continually flowing into the believer, and ever widening the channel of Divine life in him, and ever revealing to him more clearly the Divine personalities.  

The prophet Daniel had this form of desire in an extraordinary degree. Where our common version says, “He was a man greatly beloved,” the margin reads, “He was a man of desire.” That is, his inner spirit was in a continual frame of sweet craving after God. This is the inward condition of real saintliness of character. There are many persons who profess full salvation who seem to have but a feeble type of this all-mastering desire for God; it does not seem strong enough in them to take possession of all their thoughts and faculties and to draw them out into deep, continued, mental prayer.  

The effects of this pure desire after the living God are manifold. Among these effects of an all-searching desire for God may be mentioned the following: it produces the best service for Him. To serve God from fear is infinitely better than not to serve at all. In fact, the least degree of religion is not to be despised. Then to serve God out of the conscience is still better; it produces soberness of mind, convictions of duty and a sense of the majesty of Divine law and of an operation of the wrath of an offended God. But serving God out of conscientiousness can never produce a high type of piety, for it must contain more legality than love.  

But to serve God out of personal love for Him, and to have a Divine passion which craves to pour itself out in an ever-increasing service, without any prudential carefulness as to punishment or reward, but out of an intense craving to do all it can for the object of its love—this produces the highest form of service and the most extravagant degrees of self-sacrifice.  

Again, this perfect desire for God Himself weans the soul from everything on earth more perfectly and more sweetly, than anything else can do. It burns out the attachments to property, and earthly friendships and high standing. It makes us perfectly dead to all things on earth without putting any sourness, or moroseness, or melancholy into the fountains of the heart.  

Again, this desire for God is like a balsam of strength to the will; it puts a supernatural vigor into the understanding; it gives a quiet but irrevocable decision to all the choices. Love will overcome difficulties that are largely insurmountable by every other force in nature, and this perfect craving for God is love on fire. Hence it overcomes difficulties in the service of God that would otherwise be impossible.  

Finally, this perfect thirst for God opens up to our understanding an insight into the degrees of God which the human faculties could never otherwise discern. It discovers the presence of God where otherwise it would not be suspected, and discerns possibilities in Divine union beyond our ordinary language for expression. The blessed God unveils the secrets of His being to the one that perfectly craves Him just for His own sake. These are foretastes of the beatific vision, and through this desire our spiritual eyes practice for the gaze on His face in the open vision of glory.  

Then pray for desire, for love’s wistfullest yearning,  

     For the beautiful pining of holy desire;  

Yes, pray for a soul that is ceaselessly burning,  

     With the soft fragrant flames of this thrice-happy fire.  

 

O, then wish more for God, burn more with desire.  

     Covet more the dear sight of His marvelous face,  

Pray louder, pray longer, for the sweet gift of fire  

     To come down on thy heart, with its whirlwinds of grace.  

 

God loves to be longed for, He loves to be sought,  

     For He sought us Himself, with such longing and love:  

He died for desire of us, marvelous thought,  

     And He yearns for us now to be with Him above.