I Crave…
We all have cravings, these deep seated desires and needs that must be fulfilled. We only need air, water and food to survive but we need love, community, hope, security, purpose, and value to truly live.
Erwin McManus, author of Soul Cravings has grouped these most fundamental human cravings into three areas, the need for intimacy, destiny, and meaning. What do you crave the most?
Intimacy
We all desire to be known and loved. No one wants to be alone. Belonging central to what it means to be human, so what happens when you’re all alone? Read more
Destiny
You were created with purpose. What makes us want to become more than we are right now? Read more
Meaning
The need for meaning is made up of significance, truth and trust and those three are closely entwined. How do you define meaning in your life? Read more
Do you identify with having “soul cravings”? Have you felt frustrated as you try to fill them with things that ultimately don’t satisfy? Feel free to contact us by email or comment below if you’d like to share your thoughts.
I CRAVE GOD ABOVE ALL THINGS . THERE’S NOTHING OUT THERE TO FULLFILL US TRULY. FOR ME IT IS THE MOST URGENT IMPORTANT CHOICE. SO THEM WE WILL BE ABLE TO SEE WHAT IS MOST MATTER IN LIFE AS WE ARE go BY THE DAYS.
Canadian Jack thank you for sharing. That is a good reminder for us all.
I crave humility. To know, I am worth very little alone. My only worth is how much I care for other people so that their lives will be more worthwhile. I will accomplish nothing thinking only of myself.
I crave, justice, love and peace.
Hi Amy,
I am so sorry to hear your struggle. It is very hard to go on with no help, no job etc..I know it’s not easy. Amy, only God can help you in your situation. He is Your God and He promised us that He will never leave us. In my difficult time, when I had no one to help…God was my everything. I used to cry out to God and He helped me …He saved, protected me & wiped away my tears. But one thing, I never questioned or complained to God but I was just asking for help. In the Bible in Psalms 72:12,13 says…For he will deliver the needy who cry out,
the afflicted who have no one to help.He will take pity on the weak and the needy
and save the needy from death. Another verse,Psalms 69:33 says…The Lord hears the needy
and does not despise his captive people.
Amy, God, the Creator of this universe, is your help. Cry out to him. I appreciate you for taking care of your children. God is watching your faithfulness. He will open some doors for you my friend.
Let’s pray:
Dear Father,
I commit this precious family in Your hand. Lord, have mercy upon this family. Lord, You open some doors for them; Lord, meet their daily needs. Lord, bless these children. Lord, strengthen Amy. Lord, fill this house with Your love, peace and joy. Protect and bless this family. Thank You for hearing our prayers. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Amy, I’ll be continue praying for you. Please keep in touch with me.
I saw in your mission statement and just had to contact you for my plight and that of my children. I do not know if you can help us but I thought I would try. I am disabled as is one of my girls. She has ADHD, a severe developmental delay and a very extensive learning disability. She has been dealing with multiple things since she was a small child. She also suffers extreme problems with her mental, her speech, her hearing even. Overall she, thank God, made it to age 21 now but still, from what I know and see, she most likely is going to really have a very hard life ahead and here in NC, there seems to be zero help and if there any at all, I have not been able to find anything at all. I have been told and told I bet over a dozen times that the ARC program and or Easter Seals is my best bet to start. So I emailed both asking for some help, anything at all, from grants, funding, anything, both of which has shot me down over and over again and seems to me that I am right that they should be helping but I can not seem to get anywhere with anyone. The same story goes for the disability rights people here in NC. I have tried countless times also to get help or least guidance or anything at all from NC Caps too like getting her set up with a laptop so she can take classes that she don’t have to drive to. She cannot learn, read well, remember even concentrate enough and cannot and is not at this time able to even get a driver’s license. We are in need of services, all kinds. I once called another place too that also is here in NC called “adaptables” whom, I was told, would be the ones to help out with such “assisted living” items and or issues, no one ever contacted me back and I left 3 or 4 voice mails and again, countless emails. In fact, I have reached out so much and so many emails that a couple of people emailed me back and told me off and accused me of trying to lie and commit fraud, finally I gave up even trying. However, I ran across your website and I pray you will listen, understand, and perhaps help us. I would love to have a person who we can have sort of a counselor or a case worker, but in NC everyone claims they have not programs, no funding, etc. and on and on. I am exhausted looking and she isn’t getting any better. She’s now 21 and still no laptop, nothing but SSI and she has gotten that since she was 2. I have really looked all over and have run out of places to ask for help. We all 3 have seen nothing but suffering and heartache over the past years as one of my children and myself are disabled and cannot work and the other child of mine is only 12 and has not ever had any new clothes to go to school. I know that may be hard for anyone to believe but GOD knows it’s true. I have no one to help us and no family either. My daughter’s dad left us years ago and never looked back and we all three have lived our lives very hard ever since that time. I cannot get ahead to save my life, I am 49 and have nothing in this world to show for it. We have been homeless several times and life has gotten me down so badly and as hard as I try, my bipolar and depression get the best of me all the time. My daughters disabled too and has adhd (I have this too), a severe delay in her development and a horrible learning inability. We long for a mobile home or something to call our own, right now our immediate sorrow seems to be mainly mine and that is Christmas and Thanksgiving times. We cannot afford any tree especially any presents, we are even short of money to pay our bills month to month and get very few food stamps and have no food in the house now. We have to live our daily life’s suffering without things human beings should not have to and we skip these because we don’t have the money to get them, such as toiletries, and hygiene type items, clothing especially, and zero recreation. I pray and pray that by some miracle that an email of mine land upon the desk top of someone who actually would care and reach out and maybe be able to help us out. Mainly I just get the same old brush offs or we are sorry but…..CAN YOU HELP US????? I am at the end of my rope. My kids and I are totally and completely alone without any family support of any kind. Their father walked away from us several years ago and left us all high and with absolutely nothing at all. I had no credit, no skills, no family, nothing at all. We have seen nothing in this life but misery on top of misery and it is not getting better. If you are not rich or famous, you are scum and no one really cares, no one. Here in my county is the worst too and there is no type of help for Christmas or food or anything. My girls never get to eat a hamburger or go out to the dam movies or nothing and it is really starting to get the best of me. I know that if i kill myself, i will only be adding to their misery but GOD I FEEL AS A HUGE LOSER and FAILURE to my girls. I have nothing to offer them, ever, and nothing in site and no one to care or help. Now we are living in a apt that takes all of our disability and our car is not even on the road because of my inability to pay insurance etc. GOD I NEED HELP AND FAST!!!!
Amy Hernandez
Boonville NC
Oh, I like Henry Nouwen :) I enjoyed his book, The Wounded Healer… I will be sure to check out Intimacy. It sounds good.
Hmm, cravings… what a great topic. I have so many questions about cravings…
Thank you for your kind response and well wishes! I appreciate it :)
Hi fiddymike, thank you for sharing. I really feel I understand your craving, as mine is the same. How I long to see God face to face, to be fully known by Him. You can try reading “Intimacy”, a little book by Henri Nouwen. Blessings as you pursue God, to know him and to receive his knowing of you!
I crave to be known deeply. To have a relationship with another person who is so nurturing and accepting that I could share who I truly am… naked, unashamed truth. An environment that lends itself to safely unpacking the layers and layers of self without criticism, judgement and shame.
It’s as if to say, I crave a person who is so safe I could trust them to help me process and discover who I am.
Upon writing this, arises the revelation that what I seem to crave is God in the flesh. Interesting… a person “made in His image” or maybe just a God I could see and touch and feel. I crave something tangible…
So Thomas, you see God as the one who meets those cravings we have in our life? What gives you that confidence?
I’m not doing anything about it. It’s always going to be there and why stop an inexcapable part of being human? I do think this though: all our ‘unknown’ thoughts, wishes and ultimate desires (so long as they’re not sinful) will be met with God in ways we cannot imagine. I’m sure the best possible state of mind and being will and can exist. Frustrating that we can’t identify them now but patience is a virtue…
That is hard Thomas, when you know you want something but can’t pinpoint what it is that you desire. How are you trying to figure out what it is that you crave?
I have no idea. I know I crave something and I know it’s the same thing I was ‘on to’ as a kid when I got a Darth Vader figure one Christmas after a long and exciting yuletide build up to it…it was the thing I most wanted, I was surrounded by family and it was the best season of all. Not THE thing but, like I said, it pointing somehow to it…
Also I have a meglomaniac urge but I try to ignore that, as a Ming the Merciless side to me MUST be sinful.
Wow Jean, 5 a.m. seems pretty early for building a buzz. :)
I crave alcohol at 5:00.
I crave equality, education, authenticity, freedom, opportunity, love, experience
Hi Kylee, The craving to be loved is one of the very deepest of all human desires. I can understand wanting to get back together with your ex, but I would caution you to reconsider. You said that he has mentioned getting back together several times, and you react very positively and then he changes his mind. I do not not know your ex-boyfriend and I don’t know why you broke up, but I do know this: when a man wants to date a woman, he talks to her and asks her out. If he doesn’t date her it means that either something or someone is in the way, or he simply does not want to date her. If your ex-boyfriend truly wanted to get back together you’d be in that relationship now. I wonder if he simply likes the power trip of knowing that he has your heart on a string and you’ll come running every time he calls?
Break-ups are brutal and it’s very tempting to think that if you could just get back together all the pain and hurt would go away. But it’s not that simple. You do not need him to be good enough, you are good enough all on your own. I do not know if you have a faith perspective or not, but I believe in God and God says that you are a person of worth and value, a woman of beauty and purpose. Your worth does not diminish even single drop just because a guy decides that he wants to end things. It may not feel like that is true, but it is. You are a whole person all on your own and this guy, no matter how amazing he might be, he is not the last man who is ever going to love you. He is not your only road to happiness.
I’d encourage you to spend some time focussing on taking care of yourself. Take a close look at how you talk about yourself, and how you describe yourself in your thoughts. Are you kind to you? Do you tell yourself that you matter or do you make yourself feel like a loser? You are NOT a loser. There’s a great list of all the things God says about you, you can read it here. Accept yourself. Any less than that and you’ll find yourself chasing after someone who is not chasing after you. You deserve to be truly loved by someone who always takes your call, someone who is always happy to see you. Don’t let someone else tell you who you are. He does not have that power. Let God tell you who you are. I think you’ll like what he has to say.
I crave love. I crave the feeling to be cared about (not by my family, but by a man). For some reason I crave the feeling to be accepted by my ex-boyfriend. He keeps saying he wants to get back together, and then changes his mind. Every time he mentions getting back together, I obsess over it. I crave to be accepted by the person who rejected me, just so I feel “good enough.” I want get this crave under control.
What kind of things would you change Kevin?
I crave powers to change the world something superman like
how do you think that would happen Brian? What would our world look like then?
I can’t wait for the monetary system of slavery to disappear back into the hell from which it came. Although a nessisairy evil at one point in our cultural developement. I belive it is no hindering our society.l we also as a society need to turn competition into cooperation and stop trying to hold others back our bring others down so we can feel good about ourselves.
I crave financial stability…that I dont have to struggle from paycheque to pay cheque!!!
i crave my real meaning of my life the next step in my life
I crave Braille and or large print labels affixed to prescriptions dispensed to blind or visually impaired persons.
I crave convex sidewalks that shed water when we have a Winter Thaw rather than the convex ones that act as a swail when the heavy rains come in Summer. Ice really scares people off walking.
I crave a world where we emprace the notion that joy and not money should be the apple of the politicians eyes.
I crave a world that respects the individual more than the “nation / state”.
I crave thoughtfulness.
I also crave a survey where I can give my true thoughts without them being lumped in with “Something to believe in”, or choosing something as trite as Money/Success, Friends/Partying, or Love/Sex.
I crave a true understanding of the world I live in. Not a fairy tale, not a story, but a real, tangible understanding through the power of science and reason. I crave friends who I can travel through this life with who understand and support me. I crave a significant other who can be there for me when I need her most, and who I can be there for as well. Someone to care for me, and someone I can care for.
These are all things that matter to me, and I know that I can attain them if I only work a little harder.
I crave real ness…. Hope and a reason for it all.
I crave no longer owing a mortgage.
I crave to see love and justice to the street dwellers in Africa, we as the church should have our brothers and sisters at heart through prayers,social and economic support…………………………………………..I crave hope to the hopeless.
I crave social justic; equality of all in the eyes of all.