Hungering and Thirsting for God’s Marriage

Hey Covenant Groupies,

This past Sunday the sermon was titled, “Seeking God: Send Forth Your Word” from Isaiah 55:6-8, which is mighty powerful and of course and as usual, during the teaching we visited other scriptures as well as verses before and after the day's scripture.

Well, the first verse in Chapter 55 starts by saying, "Come all you who are thirsty!" I’m not sure, at all, why this particular sentence made such an impression on me and stood out so prominently, but as I meditated on the entire sermon over the weekend, I began to think about being thirsty for drink and hungry for food; how we will go to, sometimes, desperate measures for both. We'll even fight if it's not up to par-won't we?

Of course that led me to think about hungering and thirsting for God, His ways, His purposes and His marriages. I wondered, in my own life, when did I begin to acknowledge that I was truly ready to eat from God's plate and drink from His cup? Obviously, it was during a crisis; one that led me to believe that Kevin and I would never make it as a married couple.

Sometimes, I must admit, I hate the fact that we are so hard-headed to God’s nudging and then there are times I am so elated by it. It's the only way, too often, God gets our attention.

There were several times I could not see my life with Kevin as being anything but painful and I’m quite sure he’d say the same. There was a time that God put some distance between us and required me, especially, to sit in His presence and get a glimpse of Kevin from His perspective. I had never prayed for my marriage or my husband the way I did those 5 days and it was during that time that God begin to tell me how “His Ways are Not My Ways and His Thoughts are Not My Thoughts” in a truly personal way.

He shared how He has never seen, looked at or even thought of Kevin the way that I sometimes do; that I was not Him and could not begin to love Kevin or have a marriage He wants to abide in until I saw, thought or loved Kevin that way He did.
I had standards and expectations that I wanted Kevin to live up to, but it never worked out quite the way I wanted. I had to question where those standards and expectations came from. Ultimately, they were not God inspired and our marriage was on the road to failure.

This was my moment of divine thirst and hunger. I was so desperate for God to be pleased to abide with us and make His home in our relationship, but it started with my desire for His plate and his cup. His plate consists of love, mercy, forgiveness, grace, serving others, submitting to the Father’s Will in all situations, and surrendering who I am, what I believe even my dreams and desires to God. His cup was filled to the brim with pain, suffering, lies people told, brutality, hate, betrayal, and then death.

All of this plus more I owe my husband.