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My\xa0heart\xa0is filled with longing for your laws at all times\u2026Lord, I call out to you with all my\xa0heart\xa0(Psalm 119:20, 145).

We return to Psalm 119. I expect this will be the last time for a while. Via this Psalm we have been exploring what it might mean that David was \u2018a man after God\u2019s own heart\u2019 (Acts 13:22). We have looked at four things that may have caused God to describe him this way: obedience, humility, integrity and worship.

I wonder if any of you, while of course agreeing with these things, had a notion that something was missing. Many other things could be added. I checked Google this morning. Its first entry was an article including 10 things. So, yes, my list could go on for a while. But I think these four are at the top. But while I was preparing the past several devotions, I had this vague notion that I was missing something. There was something that brought all these different things together. Not something at the top of the list, but something, pardon the pun, that lies at the heart of the matter.

As you might know, last week I was on vacation. Normally, when I go on vacation, I take along a stack of digital books to read. This year, I took a real stack of novels along with one digital book that I had saved for the occasion. The opening paragraphs of that book brought the \u2018Aha\u2019, this is it, this is what I was missing. What my heart was telling me, but my mind couldn\u2019t quite grasp, I saw.

The book in question was written by Mark Galli, retired editor in chief of Christianity Today. I became familiar with Mark via the podcast called, Quick to Listen, which he co-hosted with Lee Mogan. His book, published earlier this year, is called, When Did We Start Forgetting God? published by Tyndale House.

In his book, Mark argues that while Christians talk a lot about God and do lots of things for God, we have, in large part, forgotten him. Why does he propose this? In chapter 1, He writes, \u201c\u2026a church that has not forgotten God exhibits one principal characteristic: a desire for God\u2014a desire so intense it sometimes looks like drunkenness or even madness.\u201d That is what is missing in much of Christendom today.

I\u2019m getting very close to marketing his book for him. That\u2019s not my intent. However, while editor of Christianity Today, Mark came in contact with incredibly large cross section of the church. This gives him credibility. I already knew the thesis of this book before I read it last week. I already knew that I agreed with him. We have lost our desire for God. The fact that I knew this, the fact that I was writing about David, \u2018a man after God\u2019s own heart\u2019, and the fact that I still missed it, reinforced for me, how easy it is for us to be doing things for God and to be talking and yes, preaching and preparing devotions about God, and still miss this key ingredient.

If you doubt me, listen to David, \u201cYou, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water\u201d (Psalm 63:1). \u201cOne thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple\u201d (Psalm 27:4). We see this in the New Testament where, Paul writes, \u201cEverything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him\u201d (Philippians 3:8-9).

I could go on. There are many other examples of this in the Bible. They are rooted in the summary of the law as Jesus gives it, \u201cYou must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength\u201d (Mark 12:30).

Its not that I didn\u2019t say any of this in my previous devotions. But I think that any reflections on what it means to be a person after God\u2019s own heart that does not begin and end here, with a deep desire for God, falls short. It is this longing for him, that causes God to describe David this way.

If someone were to ask you, \u2018What do you want more than anything?\u201d Would you answer simply, \u201cGod!\u201d? I\u2019m not sure how many Christians would answer that way. Our desires wonder so easily. Thus, I invite you to pray for yourself, pray for your church leaders, pray for the church, that the Holy Spirit would fill us with the desire that filled David.