I never quite understood what it meant to yearn for God or desire Him.
It didn’t matter that I grew up attending church, or that I have been an active Christian for several decades, or that I read numerous books on the subject, sang many worship songs echoing this sentiment, or even prayed and asked for God to help me “yearn for Him.”
Don’t get me wrong. I really tried. In spite of that, my other yearnings always took precedence. I yearned for an organized and clean house. Financial stability. Good health. Peaceful relationships. The well-being of my children. Healing from emotional scars. Refreshment. Strength during the hard times. Wisdom. Courage. And as a patient and loving Father, God would always hear my requests and respond in various ways. He would give me what I needed, at the time I needed them. When I went through dark times, I pleaded for Him to carry me through it. And He always did. When I needed healing in various areas of my life, He heard me and gently led me through a journey of refreshment and freedom. When I was at my wit’s end in desperation over my eldest son’s autism diagnosis, He gave me a fresh new pair of eyes and hope. But something was missing. I was always yearning for what God could give me and do for me, and that became the basis of my relationship with Him. I thought my relationship with God was all about trusting in Him and relying on Him for all the big and little things in my life. But as Beth Moore wrote in her book Breaking Free, “We can have a lust for His power [in our lives] without a yearning for His Presence.”
This past year, I experienced some emotional turmoil that led me back to seeking guidance from my Christian therapist. I was singularly focused on my one and only goal—healing. I was relentless and diligent in striving for insight along with the healing. Although God did grant me healing, He also had something else to say to me. In my devotions, God convicted me that although my greatest desire and goal was to be healed, it was less important than the Healer Himself. Sometimes the Holy Spirit speaks in a small still voice, but this conviction in my heart was very loud and clear to me, and it humbled me greatly.
As a mom of a child with autism, I always desperately sought for a stronger emotional bond between my son and me. When he was young, he rarely showed me affection. As a baby, I often held him and comforted him (he cried more than most typical infants), but he always sat limp in my arms and never held me back. His arms were never around me. He never reached for me or hugged me. Even in emotional distress, He did not instinctively reach out to me for comfort as most children would. As a mother, I longed to give him comfort and wished he would come to me so I could freely give it to him. I yearned for the day he could hug me and say “I love you.” That day came when my son was almost five years old. When he finally said those words, I was shocked and elated at the same time. As a parent, nothing warms my heart more than hearing those words, feeling his little arms around me, and receiving his love.
In the same way, I have realized that God delights over us just as we do with our own children. He loves seeing us grow, discover new things, and takes pride in all our accomplishments and growth. But nothing warms His heart more than when we come before Him, just as we are, desiring nothing but Him alone and being in His presence. He longs for us, yearns for us, pursues us, and waits for us.
There’s no doubt that I need God desperately in my 
life on a daily basis. Amidst the busyness with my young children and the added weight of autism, I cannot run in my own strength without God; otherwise I would crash and burn quickly. The busier the days are, the more I need Him. My quiet times are vital for my survival, and God is my lifeline. And the more times I sit in His Presence and in His Word, He refreshes me, builds me up, gives me joy and hope. And I’ve come to realize that this yearning for God does not come from a place of emptiness, such as needing something from God or an emptiness of hardly knowing Him. In fact, it is quite the opposite! I have learned that this yearning evolves from an intimacy with Him—from a heart of one that has already experienced God and His Presence! In Psalms 63:1, David writes,
You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you,
In a dry and parched land where there is no water.
He goes on to say where this yearning comes from—his own personal experiences in God’s Presence (vs. 2-7):
I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of goods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.
When God’s Word pierces through the very center of your heart, you have nowhere else to go except down on your knees. I often ask God for His power to work out my circumstances. I pray for His direction and His favor. But this particular time, I went on my knees, and I prayed to know Him and to grant me a yearning heart for Him above all else. I prayed that God would help me cast aside all other idols and other loves, and to grow my heart to be fervent and relentless in my desire for Him, just like David’s words. Over time, God answered my prayer as I began to sense my yearning for Him intensifying in my heart. And today, I continue to ask God to keep me thirsting for Him and Him alone.
