The Mark of a Healthy Spiritual
Life, J. R. Miller. As the deer pants
for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul
thirsts for God, for the living God. Psalm 42, 1 and 2. Hunger is a mark of health, and
the lack of appetite proclaims disease. The cessation of the
desire for knowledge shows that intellectual growth has ended. Just so in spiritual life, dissatisfaction
is the token of health. Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst after righteousness. Blessed are the unsatisfied. Blessed are those who long for
more and more. The mark of healthy spiritual
life is an intense thirst for God and a deep passionate yearning
for closer, fuller, richer, more satisfying communion with Christ
Himself. The ideal Christian life is one
of insatiable thirst, of unquenchable yearning, of divine discontent,
wooed ever on by visions of an increase in spiritual life, new
joy, and new attainments in Christlikeness. The best thing in us is never
what we now are, nor what we have already reached, but the
longing for that which is yet higher and holier. Not that I
have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect,
but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took
hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself
yet to have taken hold of it, But one thing I do, forgetting
what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press
on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called
me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3, 12-14.