The Appetite That Remains

"...I want to know Christ... to know the power of his resurrection." - Philippians 3:10 (NIV)

You had wanted to make music for years, and one evening you played a whole piece start to finish for the first time. The melody you had only imagined was there in the room now, and you had composed it. You might have stopped there, satisfied. But instead, before the last note faded, you wanted to begin the next piece. You finally had the music you longed for, yet the longing didn’t end. It grew larger, not smaller.

Life with God can be like that too. Paul knew what that was like. As one of the church’s earliest leaders, he could write, "...whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ" (Philippians 3:7). Yet near the end of his life, he still wanted more. He still wanted "...to know the power of his resurrection" (Philippians 3:10), to know the risen Jesus more deeply. That wasn’t because something was missing. He’d found everything he wanted, and finding it only made him want more of Him.

That same hunger is how living things grow. A healthy child eats, grows, and is soon hungry again, and that hunger is a good sign the child is doing well. Our life with God grows the same way. Scripture tells us to "...crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up... now that you have tasted that the Lord is good" (1 Peter 2:2-3). The craving isn’t something to fix or quiet. It may simply mean you’re still growing toward Him.

Paul never reached the end of knowing Jesus, and never expected to. The more we know someone we love, the more there is to know, and with God it never ends. He prayed that we too would come "...to know this love that surpasses knowledge" (Ephesians 3:19), a love that only deepens as we know it. We usually expect familiar things to lose their shine after a while, the way a song heard too often slips into the background. He found the opposite. The longer he knew Jesus, the more he found there was to know.

So maybe that’s why the longing has never completely left. Long ago, someone prayed it, "...My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you" (Isaiah 26:9). Not because something is missing, but because Someone is still drawing you farther in. And if you reach for Him again tomorrow, could that reaching be His doing, not only yours? Maybe the longing is telling you there is still more. He is not finished giving Himself, and we are not finished discovering Him. Follow the longing. He opens the way.

Prayer

Father, thank You for the longing You placed in us, and for the wonder that there is more of You to know. Teach us to receive it as Your invitation and follow it to You. Amen.