Matthew 5:6 – How To Decipher What You Crave The Most

You find out what you crave the most deeply when you and God have one of those uncomfortably honest conversations about it. He’s kind and also persistent. “What’s worth most to you?” He asks, bringing up threadbare hopes, miracle-required prayers, goals you’re working hard to achieve, and still-raw wounds. Things you’ve made about you that have nothing to do with you at all.

You bullet list them in your journal beneath this line from Steffany Gretzinger’s new song, “Narrow Way”:

There is nothing in this life worth the cost of losing You / Is it even sacrifice if I trade the world for You?

You’re still learning to live with open hands, but the permanence of the pen feels like a declaration.

Nothing is worth losing close communion with You, you add.

Not acknowledgment or praise.

Not an impression I can make.

Not anything I can control or prove.

Not the timeline or healing I’d choose.

Not who reads, replies, likes.

Not what I can check off as finished.

Not whether I can work ahead.

In case we haven’t met yet, hey there. My name is Twyla. I can’t sing for the life of me, but I love worship songs. As in I like to play them on repeat. The same song looped on YouTube or repeat one on Apple Music. All day. For weeks.

The repetition slows me when I want to rush into all the ideas that land in my head. Stills my heart even while my hands are busy. Becomes a running soundtrack in my head—in the silence, though the extra loud of summer—whether or not the song is actually playing.

How to Crave Righteousness

Playing “Narrow Way” on repeat led to soul-searching and honest journaling. The song also fits right into the Beatitude we’re unpacking this week.

Reading from the Passion Translation, here’s Matthew 5:6.

How enriched you are when you crave righteousness! For you will be surrounded with fruitfulness.

That’s my prayer—to crave God and the things of God over everything else.

Crave is an intense word.  Mirriam-Webster defines it as “to ask for earnestly; to want greatly; to yearn for.”

It’s also an unduly high order. One that makes me feel small and insufficient. Sometimes I get stuck on the things that I’ve allowed to distract me, forget that desire for God grows in the soil of daily surrender.

Leave it to Amanda Anderson to remind me that “though we are frail, though our flesh is weak, when we cozy up to God’s heart, we become more like him” (All My Friends Have Issues, p.157).

On the same page, she writes, “If you want to be a good friend, get to know your Father.” (Amanda Anderson). It’s remarkably true of our friendships, but this line also invites us to fill-in-the-blank with Matthew 5:6.

“If you want [to ‘crave righteousness’], get to know your Father.”

“If you want [an enriched life], get to know your Father.”

“If you want to be [‘surrounded with fruitfulness’], get to know your Father.”

We could continue:

“If you want to [better love your neighbor], get to know your Father.”

“If you want to [outpour from health and wholeness], get to know your Father.”

“If you want to [live selfless and generous], get to know your Father.”

“If you want to [stand in the gap for others], get to know your Father.”

“If you want to [desire the things that God Himself does], get to know your Father.”

Instead of beating ourselves up for misaligned desires—pursuits that lead us away from the heart of our Father—we can choose to come closer. Let His tender affection heal and His holiness purify.

When we don’t know what’s on His mind, we can ask Him.

When we don’t know what to pray, we can sit in silent awe.

And when we don’t have much time, we can start with five minutes.

10 Ways to Spend Time With God

Let’s get really practical, shall we? Here’s a list of ways to spend time with God. Pick your favorite and give it a try!

1—Play worship songs. (And if you’d like the playlist of Songs I Play On Repeat, grab it here.)

2—Spend a few minutes on your knees. It changes things.

3—Pick a verse or passage of Scripture and memorize it.

4—Write a Bible verse on a mirror (or anywhere you’ll see it often).

5—Start a Thank You, God gratitude list.

6—Pray out loud while walking outside. Even if it’s a whisper.

7—Write your own “Nothing is worth more than You, God” list. Let go of each item as you list it.

8—Read a familiar verse in another translation (my favorite is The Passion Translation).

9—Sit somewhere with the sun on your face and simply listen.

10—Get really honest in a journal. And if a blank page intimidates you, I recommend Jennifer Dukes Lee’s guided journal, Stuff I’d Only Tell God: A Guided Journal of Courageous Honesty, Obsessive Truth-Telling, and Beautifully Ruthless Self-Discovery.

Fruitfulness Is an Overflow

I know the way seeking God makes hunger grow. But hunger creates a reservoir that’s meant to overflow.

Our verse in Matthew notes being “surrounded with fruitfulness” (Matt. 5:6 TPT). I picture Honey Crisp apples, grapes that crunch when you bite into them, juicy, sweet clementines, dozens of nectarines. Maybe a pineapple or two. The fruit can’t fit in the basket, so it spills all over the counter, fills the kitchen with an irresistible aroma.

That’s what our lives can look like. Not sparse, underripe fruit. But a rich, joyous overflow of all the good God is growing inside us.

The overflowing is God’s original plan. Jesus emphasizes in John 10:10,

But I have come to give you everything in abundance, more than you expect—life in its fullness until you overflow!

TPT

We get close to Jesus so He can fill us, and fill us, and fill us until His goodness runs like ripples. Reaches those around us. Helps them start to crave Jesus too.

Let’s pray.

Jesus, we confess we’ve settled. Craved lesser things. Pursued them with words, steps, our attention.

We want to know You better, starting today.

We want to overflow with fruitfulness, starting today.

So we come close, because You’re here for the finding.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

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