Help for the Hungry Soul E-Book

Kristen Wetherell

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Encouragement to Treasure the Bible and Grow in Your Desire for God's Life-Giving Word In our never-satisfied world, our souls hunger for more, and it's tempting to reach for the wrong "food" to satisfy our needs. Thankfully, Jesus is the bread of life who offers us himself through the life-giving and sustainable feast of Scripture (John 6:35). But how often do we sit at Christ's table, truly hungry for his word?  Help for the Hungry Soul offers 8 encouragements to spur an appetite for God's word. Through searching questions, practical ideas, and moving testimonies, author Kristen Wetherell will help readers to reflect on their journey with their Bible and uncover how it is possible to treasure God's word. For those feeling discouraged or guilty about a waning desire for Scripture, Wetherell will spark excitement in their spiritual life—ultimately encouraging them to put God and his word at the center of it all. - Encourages Readers to Love God's word: Teaches why readers should treasure the Bible to spark enthusiasm for reading Scripture - Interactive Elements: This practical book provides reflection questions, habit trackers, and scriptural interaction to spur appetite for the word - Contains Anecdotal Stories: Each chapter ends with an individual's unique testimony related to their personal journey with the Bible

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“I pray almost every day that the Lord would create in me a greater hunger for his word and his ways. But for that to happen my appetites must be reoriented. In Help for the Hungry Soul, Kristen Wetherell reveals our deepest hunger pains as she points us to the only source of true satisfaction. So pick up this book, and you will taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Courtney Doctor, Director of Women’s Initiatives, The Gospel Coalition; Bible teacher; author, From Garden to Glory and In View of God’s Mercies

“Help for the Hungry Soul serves as an encouragement to all of us, regardless of the season we are in, that God himself delights in arousing, sustaining, and satisfying our spiritual hungers by giving us the gift of his word and his presence. These short, content-rich chapters will encourage you afresh that God delights in filling the hungry with good things (Ps. 107).”

Amy Gannett, Founder and Creator, Tiny Theologians; Writer and Bible Teacher, The Bible Study Schoolhouse; author, Fix Your Eyes

“In Help for the Hungry Soul, Kristen Wetherell has found a way to champion the habit of Bible reading without the frequent side effects of guilt or legalism. She invites us to dig deeper into God’s precious word while also freeing us from the obligatory ‘quiet time.’ This book is a hope-filled encouragement to those who long for more of God and yet constantly feel unable to find the time or energy to follow through.”

Kelly Needham, wife; mom of five; author, Friendish and Purposefooled

“This book is more than a good read. It’s a life-changer that will increase your hunger for God’s word. Honest, personal stories from real people will enable you to identify with their struggles to grow in his word. Kristen Wetherell’s insights increase my commitment to pray for each of my twenty-one grandchildren to fall in love with the word of God (Ps. 119:105).”

Susan Alexander Yates, speaker; blogger, SusanAlexanderYates.com; author, Risky Faith and One Devotional

“‘Gather a day’s portion.’ That’s a truth I love to rehearse in the morning as I open up the Bible and ask for God’s help. It’s a reminder I don’t need to do too much in morning devotions—and I need to make sure to do the main thing. And it’s a feeding image—a picture of hunger and eating and satisfaction. Of the many good ways we can approach reading, studying, and meditating on God’s word, the feeding image is as important—and practically helpful—as any. That’s why I love the vision of this book: to grow your soul’s appetite for God through his word. Kristen Wetherell is both a skilled and reliable guide. So take up and read yourself into greater hunger and feed afresh on the only one who truly satisfies.”

David Mathis, Senior Teacher and Executive Editor, desiringGod.org; Pastor, Cities Church, Saint Paul, Minnesota; author, Habits of Grace

“Reading Help for the Hungry Soul will be a ministry of grace to you. Not only will this book stir your appetite for the deep things of God, but it will also give you a satisfying and nourishing meal along the way.”

Jared C. Wilson, Assistant Professor of Pastoral Ministry and Author in Residence, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; author, The Imperfect Disciple and Love Me Anyway

“At last! A book that is full of encouragement in an area where many Christians feel only defeat. Help for the Hungry Soul will stir your heart to feed on God’s word. It will entice you with the why and equip you with the how.”

Colin Smith, Senior Pastor, The Orchard, Arlington Heights, Illinois; Founder and Bible Teacher, Open the Bible

Help for the Hungry Soul

Help for the Hungry Soul

Eight Encouragements to Grow Your Appetite for God’s Word

Kristen Wetherell

Foreword by Jani Ortlund

Help for the Hungry Soul: Eight Encouragements to Grow Your Appetite for God’s Word

Copyright © 2023 by Kristen Wetherell

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover and illustration design: Crystal Courtney

First printing 2023

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated into any other language.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4335-8861-7 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-8864-8 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-8862-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Wetherell, Kristen, author.

Title: Help for the hungry soul : eight encouragements to grow your appetite for God's word / Kristen Wetherell.

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022047904 (print) | LCCN 2022047905 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433588617 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781433588624 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433588648 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible—Study and Teaching. | Christian life.

Classification: LCC BS600.3 .W48 2023 (print) | LCC BS600.3 (ebook) | DDC 220.07—dc23/eng/20230320

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022047904

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022047905

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2023-07-23 08:09:55 PM

To all the saints in Jesus Christ who are at The Orchard,

who trust, proclaim, preach, teach, study, read, love, and hunger for God’s word:

may you grow deeper roots, richer life, and more fruit.

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you (Phil. 1:3).

Contents

  Foreword by Jani Ortlund

  Introduction: A Hunger to Hear from God

1  Know Your Hungry Heart

Lydia’s Story: A Growing Affection for God’s Word

2  Plead for a Holy Hunger

Josh’s Story: Hungry to Be Hungry Again

3  Don’t Miss Jesus

Aubrey’s Story: A Treasury of the Lord’s Compassion

4  Remember the Privilege

Davis’s Story: Reviving the Soul, Rejoicing the Heart

5  Feast with Your Church

Amanda’s Story: The Long, Good Work of God’s Word

6  Feed Yourself Creatively

Bill’s Story: Many Ways to Grow in God’s Word

7  Trust God’s Nourishing Work

Linda’s Story: God’s Power, Our Persistence

8  Embrace Your Hunger

  Appendix 1: How to Get Started Reading Your Bible

  Appendix 2: Reading Lists

  Acknowledgments

  General Index

  Scripture Index

Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

Psalm 81:10

Foreword

Apparently, I was a very fussy eater as a baby. My pediatrician insinuated that my mother was not trying hard enough to get her eighteen-month-old daughter to eat, and Mom was distressed. She determined to get me to eat more. “Come on, darling. Open up! This tastes yummy. Try it—you’ll like it!” But have you ever tried to get a fussy toddler to open her mouth and take in what you know she needs? It is pretty much impossible to pry open little jaws that are firmly clenched shut in a picky protest. And even if you could force in a little bite of nourishment, how would you get her to swallow it?

Fortunately, I’m not such a fussy eater these days. I love all kinds of foods and, surprisingly enough, find myself willing to try new ones. In fact, I’ve even come to enjoy the venison and elk my dear Ray fills our freezer with each fall. It’s a good thing I have a healthy appetite!

In Help for the Hungry Soul, Kristen Wetherell shows us how God uses our natural physical hunger to teach us about our supernatural spiritual hunger for him. Just as we can starve our bodies, we can also starve our souls. And if we refuse his soul food, he won’t force-feed us. That’s really scary. After all, whose spiritual appetite stays consistently strong week after week, month after month? We need help.

Kristen helps us see that God himself arouses, sustains, and satisfies our deepest hunger. I love her short, clear chapters with engaging stories of hungry souls feasting at the table of the King. She shows us how eager our heavenly Father is to satisfy our soul hunger. “The hungry soul he fills with good things” (Ps. 107:9). My affection for God’s word has been renewed as Kristen helped me fall more deeply in love with Christ himself, the living Word.

That’s why I’m grateful for this book. Kristen understands the wonder it is to go from hindered to hopeful, from dulled to delighted, from picky to passionate. She calls this wonder the miracle of loving God’s word. And she guides us in how to bring our fussy hearts to our kind King for him to work that miracle in us.

Help for the Hungry Soul is an enticing invitation to every one of us to slow down and feast on the bread of life (John 6:48). I hope you’ll accept this invitation to “open your mouth wide” and let him fill it. You’ll be glad you did. Now—let the feasting begin!

Jani Ortlund

Renewal Ministries

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,

and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,

and delight yourselves in rich food.

Isaiah 55:2

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”

John 6:35

Nothing can make us hungry for Scripture more than Scripture itself.

Donald S. Whitney

Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health

Introduction

A Hunger to Hear from God

I wrote this book because I am hungry, and I know I’m not alone.

Look around you. Beneath the digital cries for attention is hunger. Lurking under the nagging sense of not-enoughness is hunger. Lingering beside the longing for more is hunger.

Hunger is everywhere. It is within you and within me.

You know it. It’s that insatiable craving for more that not even the biggest promotion or highest honor can curb. It’s that unsettled feeling that all is not right with the world, even after the best and brightest day, and that there is more to be enjoyed and more rest to be found. It’s the grumble of discontentment that keeps us hopping from one thing to the next as we think, There must be more to life than this.

And yet, we settle for less.

I wonder how many of us know what it is to feed these hunger pangs, the crying-out of our souls, with food that doesn’t ultimately satisfy or nourish us. That’s why I wrote this book—a book about food.

Well, sort of.

Help for the Hungry Soul is ultimately a book about your soul, and the food your soul needs to live.

Born to Hunger

I was born hungry. So were you.

Think about it: What is the purpose of an appetite? If we had no appetite, we wouldn’t know the loveliness of eating food. Appetite is beneficial; it leads us to seek what we need to survive and thrive. It is our body’s cry for help, a God-given alarm system for our flourishing.

A person with a skewed appetite (or no appetite) is a person whose body is unwell.

The same goes for your soul. Have you considered that it was also created with an appetite? You were made to desire and hunger for your eternal Creator (Gen. 1:26–27; Eccles. 3:11; Isa. 55:6–7; Mic. 6:8; John 15:5). Man and woman (you and I) were fashioned to reflect the God whose existence never ends, as our Creator breathed the breath of life—God’s very life—into Adam’s nostrils and planted the tree of life beside him in the garden (Gen. 2:7–9). It has always been God’s delight to share his life with us.

Our souls were made to live forever, feasting always on his goodness.

And so, in a moment of great opportunity, what did the serpent use to tempt Eve to disobedience? He used appetite, hunger.

God had given Adam and Eve the freedom to eat from every tree in the garden except one (Gen. 2:9, 16–17). Just one. Every other tree would sustain them, but the evil tree would destroy them, body and soul. The enemy used a familiar instinct—a good, God-given instinct—to deceive and kill. Our first parents ate, and they would never be the same. Neither would we.

The Word at the beginning who made them hungry for him, who made them to live with him forever, had spoken clear words for Adam and Eve to live by. But they chose different words and listened to a different voice (Gen. 3:11, 17). They fed themselves with lies, and they died.

Body and soul, they perished in their sin.

Now, thanks to Adam and Eve, our appetites have gone terribly wrong. We are still as hungry as ever—but for the wrong things. And so, from the garden throughout the generations we have dealt with our soul-hunger in manifold, creative, yet unsuccessful ways. How God has dealt with it, however, has been quite simple and straightforward.

He has spoken. “Man shall not live by bread alone, / but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4; see Deut. 8:3).

Many People Are “Hungry”

This is a book about God’s word, but it’s not a how-to—there are lots of excellent books about Bible reading and study methods. Here, I write about the why, the heart behind opening our Bibles. I want to help the person who feels stuck and defeated.

So, yes, this is a book about food, but of a different category. It is about the life-giving nourishment God has graciously provided for his hungry, starving people throughout the ages: his word. I am praying that Help for the Hungry Soul will freshly entice you to feast on true food, the living words of the living God who alone can sustain and satisfy your eternal hunger with himself.

Now, you may be thinking, That’s great, Kristen. Bible reading might come easily to you, but it’s hard for me. I know I’m supposed to, but I have little desire for it. I’ll never be where other Christians are, where I should be.

In truth, my heart is in a similar position as yours. Just when I thought I would be writing this book from a place of relative strength, I was thrust into the reality of my weakness. I was reawakened to my need for grace. I was reminded that all of us are dependent on the Lord to make us more hungry for him.

If you think you’re alone in not wanting to read your Bible, think differently. A recent article about American Bible reading habits says, “Relatively few Americans—including Christians—read the Bible often.” Only one in six adults reads the Bible most days during the week.1

This finding confirms what I’ve heard from many people over the last year. Through surveying various groups and talking to friends, church leaders, and pastors, by far the most common word used to describe people’s appetites for God’s word is hungry, yet this takes on different tones in different contexts. Some have said their hunger is a deep and ever-increasing desire for Scripture (praise God for that), while many others have used hunger to describe a languishing or longing of the soul.

People are hungry—but not hungry enough to engage.

People are hungry—but not sure what to do about it.

People are hungry—but for things other than God’s word.

Revival and Reorientation

How would you describe your current appetite for God’s word? Maybe it has been years since you’ve opened a Bible, or maybe you’ve never read it before. Perhaps you engage with Scripture consistently, but your heart feels flat to it, and you’ve grown discouraged. Maybe Bible reading has seemed like more of a “supposed to” than a “want to,” and you’re not convinced you could feel differently. Or maybe the desire is there, but you struggle to act on it.

It seems to me that the church needs a revival of hunger for the living words of the living God—a compelling answer to the question, How can I love Scripture again?—as well as a reorientation about what engaging with God’s word actually looks like for hungry people with full lives.

We need a stirring up and a settling down.

As we’ll see, the stirring up of the human heart isn’t a formula but a supernatural gift.2 In other words, the right spiritual food doesn’t necessarily equal spiritual appetite. A person can engage with God’s words by reading or hearing them and remain hardened, as Jesus talks about in his parable of the sower (Matt. 13:1–23).

But we also can’t expect our appetites to grow if we aren’t feeding on soul-food. There is a connection between consuming God’s words and loving God’s words. And yet, we also need his direct, divine intervention. We need him. As pastor and author John Piper says:

The act of reading, in order to be done as God intended, must be done in dependence on God’s supernatural help. . . . If more people approached the Bible with a deep sense of helplessness, and hope-filled reliance on God’s merciful assistance, there would be far more seeing and savoring and transformation than there is.3

The stirring up of our souls is something only God can do—and is anything too hard for him (Jer. 32:27)? As you read this book, my hope is that God will use it to this end, that he will whet your appetite for his word as we explore the questions Whyshould I love Scripture? and How is it possible for me to desire it again? I pray that by the end you will be refreshed and compelled to feast on his living words in a new way. I pray that, right this moment, you will open yourself up to this supernatural possibility, however apathetic or discouraged you may feel.

But we not only need a stirring up; we also need a settling down.

I don’t mean “we need to settle” (far from it!). I mean we need to rest in the many amazing opportunities and contexts we have to consume God’s word, rather than constantly feeling guilty about not having perfect daily devotions—what we have come to know as “quiet time.”

Daily quiet time is not bad or wrong! It is, in fact, a very good habit. But we need a reorientation about what loving God’s word actually looks like for hungry people with full lives; we need biblical reorientation, rather than trying to mimic historical or cultural ideals. Ultimately, we need to combat false guilt from narrow notions about what it means to feast on God’s words and rest in God’s kindness to give us ample opportunities to enjoy Scripture.

In other words, it’s possible you’re not failing in this area as much as you think you are. I believe we will be encouraged by what we discover.

A Hunger to Hear from God

The brief chapters that follow are eight encouragements for growing an appetite for God’s word, the everlasting food your soul needs most. Some of these will take us back to the basics, reminding us of truths we may have forgotten or taken for granted. Others will give us a fresh perspective on what it looks like to engage practically with Scripture.