We are needy creatures. For all the attempts many of us make to be independent and self-sufficient, it doesn’t work very well. In the quiet of the night or when circumstances force us to be alone and silent, we become aware of what we’d like to forget – a desperate longing, a hunger in the human heart, that we can’t make go away, try as we might.

Sometimes we try to assuage that hunger with distractions or addictions or “good works” to the point it shrinks into a nagging flicker we don’t let ourselves or anyone else know about. Other times it flares up into a voracious inferno, bent on consuming everything in its path. And if we ever succeed in purportedly killing it, we’re left dead inside, nothing more than a shell of a person, simply existing.

In The Soul of Desire Christian psychiatrist Dr. Curt Thompson calls us people of great desire, and of deep grief. Our deepest longings may feel almost too painful to bear, lest we be disappointed and find ourselves lost and grieving, with no place to go.

I regularly work with individuals struggling with issues around sexuality and intimacy. How often I’ve seen these longings play themselves out in destructive behaviors. You might blame early exposure to porn, or our sexualized culture, or our biological sex drive, for these behaviors. Those things matter, but it’s the hunger in the human heart that makes these hooks “work.”

Yes, the human race has an intimacy disorder. What are we going to do about that?

Jesus: “What do you want?”

When you read the gospels you get the impression Jesus is not seeking to squelch the hunger in the human heart, but rather to fan the flickering flame into a blaze – and direct it toward the only place true satisfaction can be found.

Jesus not infrequently asked someone who came to Him, “What do you want?” They’re the first words we read of Jesus speaking in the gospel of John (John 1:38). He regularly invited people to pay attention to the longings in their heart, and to speak them.

The story of the woman at the well (John 4) is a great example. Using the metaphor of water, Jesus highlights her thirst, eliciting her expression of longing; “Sir, give me this water!” (John 4:15). And then He proceeds to highlight how everything she’d been doing to try to satisfy her heart’s hunger hadn’t worked.

It seems Jesus would like us to hunger more, not less.

Naming Your Hungers

If I asked you today “what do you want?”, you might say more money, a better job, to get married, to get un-married, children, a new or better car, any number of things. Those are desires for good things. But what’s underneath those longings?

I often work with someone who’s married who says, “I want my spouse to want me. I want a satisfying sex life with them.” Again, that’s a good desire. But what do you really want when you want sex (if you do)?

Underneath these longings you may be wishing for things like comfort, status, relief, happiness, pleasure, excitement, validation, or a sense of purpose. And deeper yet is the desperate longing in every human heart for acceptance, connection, and love. As Dr. Curt Thompson says, again, “Every baby is born into the world looking for someone looking for them.”

It’s the need for intimacy that God built into every human heart, the longing to be truly seen and known.

One of the most heartbreaking moments in the early sessions I have with a coaching client is when someone says something like, “My parents were good people, but they never really knew me.”

Intimacy has gone wrong for every member of the human race, sometimes in what outwardly seem small ways, and sometimes in deeply traumatic ways.

Dealing with Your Hungers

The early church father Augustine said, “Thou has made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” He was naming the only thing that can truly assuage the true hungers in the human heart.

We can hear that, perhaps agree with it, but quickly dismiss it. That sounds nice, but I never feel close to God like that. I feel so lonely. My body is screaming for sex. My life is so miserable. Let’s not do a spiritual bypass here; Jesus never minimized what our embodied human selves experience – and long for. In fact He invited people to notice their longings even more.

It’s always dangerous to suggest “steps” to “fix” anything about our complicated human lives. And really, it’s not about fixing anyway; our souls are responding the way God intended them to. But it is appropriate to be practical – as Jesus was. So in that light, let me suggest these areas  we must address in dealing with the hungers in our hearts.

1. Sit with the Longing

This can be immensely uncomfortable. In today’s culture more than ever we have been schooled in innumerable ways to remove our discomfort with entertainment, busyness, or any number of addictions.

Let me invite you to develop the skill of being uncomfortable. What is the true state of your heart? What do you want? And what do you really want? Will that satisfy you, or will it only be fast-food-empty-calories that quiet your rumbling stomach for a moment but doesn’t provide the nourishment your soul truly needs?

Look for the deeper desires such as rest, connection, intimacy, wholeness.

2. Do the work

Anything good requires work – and time. That does not mean you can put in this amount of this kind of effort and get a guaranteed result. We’d like a formula, and the only formula for wholeness is God’s presence.

But there are things we must do in pursuit of that satisfaction. Almost always it includes looking under the surface and contending with the parts of us we don’t want to look at, the things that have gone into us becoming who we are today.

It will most certainly include doing the messy work of connecting with other human beings. I know the shame or past trauma or loneliness or whatever else makes your soul recoil at the idea. It may not be easy, but like Jesus did, you will need your Peter, James, and John.

3. Allow Jesus In

This is not some magical formula like a smart-phone app; punch the right buttons, and you get what you want. But Augustine was right; our hearts were made for God Himself. Author Christopher West describes how the hunger in the human heart we identify as eros is designed by God to pull us to the Divine – to ultimate intimacy and union with Him forever.

A series of religious activities will never satisfy this hunger in the human heart. This is the kind of longing that is only satisfied by the ultimate love story. It’s wild. It feels dangerous. And for those who have pursued God in this way, or more accurately have come to see how God is pursuing them in this way, there’s nothing like it.

All the other things we desire may be good. God has filled this earth with many good things we can enjoy; vocation, beauty, friendship, nature, joy. And underneath it all, those are but appetizers pointing us to the One our hearts truly long for. (Psalm 42:1-2)

Your turn: What are the hungers in your human heart – more than the superficial ones, even if they’re good?  What do you want – really?  Leave a comment below.

Want more? This week on the podcast I talk with Dr. Floyd Godfrey about the human need and desire for connection, and how those desires can sometimes get us into trouble.  Listen or watch.

Tweetables: why not share this post?

• What do you want – really? There are deep hungers in the human heart that we try to assuage with distraction, addictions, or entertainment. But at its root, our deepest longings are pointing us to God Himself.   Tweet that.

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