Allen-Lee Memorial United Methodist Church
  • Home
    • Lent
  • About Us
    • Contact Pastor
    • Calendar
    • Allen-Lee Honors
    • Our Community
    • Outreach >
      • Unity Elementary School
      • United Methodist Children's Home
      • Operation Christmas Child
      • Missions in China
    • Photo Gallery
  • Prayer Requests
  • Weekly Bulletin
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • November 2016
    • July 2016
  • Our History
    • Young John Allen
    • Dr. James Wideman Lee
    • Previous Pastors
    • History Book
  • District News
  • Useful Links

An Appetite for God

2/27/2013

0 Comments

 
By Michael Sherer, IT director, Goshen College
Reprinted from
Lenten Devotions

DEVOTIONAL:  A
s human beings, we are designed by God with appetites. Our creaturely drives for food, water, sleep and sex keep us alive and sustain the species, but we are obviously far more complex than that. George Otis, Jr.’s “Life Appetites Test” lists 35 possible appetites, and I think he missed a few! Who of us can claim that our own appetites are always in balance and healthy? They compete with and even replace one another. Any dieter knows that eating is often not about hunger. Teens have sex for a raft of reasons that are not sexual. Drugs and alcohol are dangerous in part because their addictive powers can overwhelm other important and socially redeeming appetites.

The season of Lent is an annual reminder that we are by nature not in balance, and that by giving something up we can better focus our attention on God. North American culture has little room for asceticism, and I would argue, little room for God either. We have 35+ appetites ready to take the place of our need for God and a 24/7/365 consumer culture ready to sate them.

In today’s passage, Psalm 63, David speaks to us across time, space and culture about his relationship with God. And he does it in terms of appetites. David thirsts for God. God’s love satisfies him as much as the richest food. He thinks about God all night long in bed (instead of sleeping? while sleeping?). In the process, David frames his relationship with God as a powerful appetite. God’s love is better than life! It’s no accident that this Psalm was written in the desert, a barren place barely able to support life, but with a long tradition of stimulating spiritual reflection. In that place, where hunger and thirst are never far away, David stimulated his appetite for relationship with God. His writing conveys a spiritual capacity that far outstrips my own, and I admire it. I want it. Lent provides me with the opportunity to work at it.
SCRIPTURE: Psalm 63:1-8 (NRSV)
A Psalm of David, when he was in the Wilderness
of Judah.
O God, you are my God, I seek you,
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no
water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands and call on your name.
My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast,
and my mouth praises you with joyful lips
when I think of you on my bed,
and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
for you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.
My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

         

    Melanie Stanley-Soulen pastored Allen-Lee United Methodist Church from 2007 until 2013.

    Archives

    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012

    Categories

    All
    Advent
    Lent
    Monday Morning In North Georgia
    Thanksgiving

    RSS Feed

Powered by
  • Home
    • Lent
  • About Us
    • Contact Pastor
    • Calendar
    • Allen-Lee Honors
    • Our Community
    • Outreach >
      • Unity Elementary School
      • United Methodist Children's Home
      • Operation Christmas Child
      • Missions in China
    • Photo Gallery
  • Prayer Requests
  • Weekly Bulletin
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • November 2016
    • July 2016
  • Our History
    • Young John Allen
    • Dr. James Wideman Lee
    • Previous Pastors
    • History Book
  • District News
  • Useful Links
✕