If you feel empty, unsatisfied, you need to experience the love of God.

Recently my wife and I drove 30 minutes to a forest preserve and took a two-mile walk. The walk lasted through lunchtime, so afterward we decided to get lunch somewhere nearby. I checked the map in my phone, and we selected a Mexican restaurant. The restaurant was small and tucked into a corner of a struggling shopping center. The sign in the window said, “Authentic Mexican food.” By the time we sat down at a table and ordered, we were famished.

I ordered a chicken burrito, and we had guacamole and chips, jalapenos and pickled carrots before the main course arrived. The sign in the window was accurate, for the food was like homemade. Everything was fresh and delicious. My burrito was large, but I ate it all. When we eventually walked out of the restaurant, I felt mucho bueno. That meal literally was a happy meal.

The satisfaction loop

One’s soul goes through repeating cycles of hunger, eating, and satisfaction. The loops can be with food, with work and rest, prayer, intellectual learning, connection with friends and family. In all these areas we know what it’s like to experience deep satisfaction. Your soul says, Ahhhhhhh, that was good. I’m at peace. I’m full.

According to Psalm 63:3, the greatest satisfaction the soul can have comes from experiencing the love of God. It says, “Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.” It appears that the psalmist David was trying to find a comparison to say that God’s love brings ultimate satisfaction. He may have gone in his mind through a list of satisfying things: Your love is better than seeing a beautiful sunset. Your love is better than fresh grilled lamb. Your love is better than being intimate with my wife. Then he realized that experiencing God’s love is better than any of those things. In fact, it’s better than all of them put together. And the best way he could find to say that was, your love is better than life itself.

Full satisfaction in God’s love

God’s love is better than anything in life, than everything in life put together. It’s so great that it’s even better than being alive itself. Which is a paradox, of course, because you can’t experience God’s love without being alive. But just being alive is good and wonderful, when we are in our right mind, not complaining or depressed or afraid or misguided by other bad attitudes. When we are thinking clearly, we realize that just being alive is a great pleasure and gift.

We’ve all heard people who somehow sidestepped death from something like sickness or a car accident, and through that event they came to appreciate every day the gift of life, all by itself. Just being alive is deeply satisfying. So, the psalmist is saying God’s love is even better than that. Knowing God’s love is the most satisfying experience available to the human soul.

A prayer guide for thinking about God’s love

That’s one reason why for nearly a year I’ve been posting articles on that theme. That’s why as I now finish the theme, I plan to give in a forthcoming post a summary outline of the ground we have covered, with Scriptures and declarations you can make in prayer and meditation. So that as you keep calling these truths to mind, your hungry soul can say, Ahhhhhh.

God is love (1 John 4:8, 16). Your soul’s greatest satisfaction matches the fundamental nature of God. That’s not a coincidence. It’s one more example that confirms you were created by and for God.

Not you?

You might read this post and feel disappointed, however. You might feel that meditating prayerfully about God’s love doesn’t bring you that much pleasure and satisfaction. My counsel to you is, be patient and ask God to teach you about his love and to reveal it to you (Romans 5:1–5; Ephesians 3:14–19). Some people get hold of this easily, but for a host of reasons others don’t. If you persist in asking and seeking, you will have a dawning of God’s love in your soul and find the satisfaction you cannot have in any created thing.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: The fallen soul seeks ultimate satisfaction in created things, rather than God. Following this course is like a person who is adrift in the middle of the ocean in a lifeboat, desperately thirsty under a burning sun, all fresh water long gone, who finally reaches over the side and drinks salt water, which only exacerbates dehydration and kills the person who drinks it.

God’s way: God made us for himself, for divine love, and the soul is always thirsty and hungry until it learns to feast fully on the love of God.

Life principle: We do not automatically know how to experience God’s love continually. We must learn to love him and learn to comprehend his love.

Your soul has a big appetite. A filling meal is on the table. You can find spiritual satisfaction.

We all know what it’s like for life to crowd out the practice of God’s presence. We get busy. Distractions are everywhere. We face problems and crises.

But God invites us to a better way.

He told Moses, “You shall set the bread of the Presence on the table before me regularly” (Exodus 25:30).

This was a regulation for the Tabernacle, the transportable tent where Israel worshiped during their desert wanderings. It became the model for the permanent Temple.

So, what does this have to do with practicing God’s presence? The Temple is a metaphor for body and soul. First Corinthians 6:19 says to Christians, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?”

The bread of the presence

The temple had three sections: the courtyard, the holy place, and the most holy place.

The most holy place, containing the ark of the covenant, had the very presence of God. This corresponds to God’s presence in you that never leaves. He has united with you, and that’s that. You can’t practice it; he’s there.

The area outside the most holy place was the holy place and had three pieces of furniture: a table for burning incense, a lampstand, and a table for the Bread of the Presence.

The priests put twelve fresh loaves of bread on that table weekly to replace the stale bread of the previous week. The fresh bread of God’s presence was not in the holy place unless the priest did something.

So it is with us. Normally we need to attend to God’s presence in order to experience it. We can’t rely on old bread. We need to keep presenting fresh bread through prayer, worship, turning our thoughts to God, and so on.

Soul food

Bread is an important metaphor. It was the daily food staple of the Israelites. God uses this metaphor to teach that his presence is the daily food of our souls. Nothing is more satisfying or delicious to our spirit than God’s presence.

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35).

If you truly experience God’s presence, it is more satisfying than media entertainment, smart phone activity, human conversation, food, pleasure, or work.

Find spiritual satisfaction even in a crisis

Moreover, God’s presence is available at the hardest times. David said, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies” (Psalm 23:5).

He literally experienced that when fleeing from King Saul’s assassins. David went to the temple and asked the priest for something to eat. The priest gave him the Bread of the Presence. (Mark 2:25–26; 1 Samuel 21:1–6)

The lesson for you is, the satisfying bread of God’s presence is available if you have assassins at your heels.

If you feel everything is going wrong.

If you feel worse has come to worst.

When you are tired, alone, afraid, stressed, worried, sick, hungry, bankrupt, unemployed, rejected, persecuted, homeless, hospitalized.

God’s presence is available to you.

So eat the bread of heaven. Every hour of every day. He wants to be with you even in terrible times.