My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you. —Isaiah 26:9.
When a young couple in love is apart, they long to be with each other so much. When parents are separated from a child, they miss that child intensely. When a spouse can no longer be with a long-time marriage partner, that person’s soul can ache to be reunited with the one they have loved and lost. God created us to be in the most profound fellowship with him and find our source and significance in our relationship with him. This deep relationship was initially called “walking in the garden in the cool of the day,” something that sin took away from us and caused us to hide from God (Genesis 3:8). Do you recognize your spirit aching to be with God? Many believers call this ache the God-shaped hole in all of us. It is a powerful metaphor for the yearning and longing for God we have built into our hearts, a longing that even sin and the evil one cannot extinguish. So, how do we fill our God-shaped hole? First, let’s recognize our God-hunger can only be satisfied by the Lord himself, not another person, creature, or creation. Then, we should confess our longing and yearning for God as Isaiah did in today’s verse. That opens the door for our hearts to satisfy our yearning and longing by spending time in our Abba Father’s presence as we communicate our desire, affection, and need to be with our Abba in heaven. Yes, our souls yearn for God during the night; in the morning, our spirits long to be alive with God as we begin each day!