By Laura BennettThursday 5 Dec 2024UNDISTRACTEDBooksReading Time: 3 minutes
Underneath all the clutter and concerns of life, do you ever feel an unshakeable longing for something more? A nagging sense that this isn’t “it” despite the successes you’ve achieved?
Key Points:
- “We often misdiagnose desire for the surface level things that we’re feeding on” unaware that what we’re truly craving is the contentment only connection with Jesus can provide.
- Thirsting is Strahan’s invitation to understand the desires that drive us and to honour them instead of burying them
- Listen to this episode of Undistracted in the player above, on the Hope 103.2 app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Inspired by longing in his own life, New Zealand musician and writer Strahan Coleman wrote his latest book Thirsting, exploring our hearts deepest desires and how they’re rooted in Christ.
Strahan thinks “we often misdiagnose desire for the surface level things that we’re feeding on” unaware that what we’re truly craving is the contentment only connection with Jesus can provide.
“There’s this yearning for eternity, this yearning to be fully in perfect, unceasing love,” Strahan said.
“And I think that’s the thing that drives us.”
“We often misdiagnose desire for the surface level things that we’re feeding on” unaware that what we’re truly craving is the contentment only connection with Jesus can provide.
For years Strahan travelled the globe as a musician enjoying the adventure of new cities, places and people but when chronic illness affected his ability to sing, he realized his lifestyle was covering up unattended “soul cravings”.“The desire of my heart is music,” Strahan said.
“To express and to write and to be poetic and share it.
“When I lost that I really had to dig deep and say, ‘Can God be enough for me in the grief and loss of something that is a deep part of me?’.
“That’s been a massive journey for me in recent years, and not an easy one.”
One of things we need to ask ourselves is, if our job wasn’t present, if we didn’t have the family we do – if material success wasn’t available to us – could we still be satisfied?
“I don’t think it takes a lot of convincing talking to people, to know we’re not really satisfied,” Strahan said.
“We’re always looking over the horizon for the next thing.”
Thirsting is Strahan’s invitation to understand the desires that drive us and to honour them instead of burying them and, for Christians, allow us to acknowledge when we’re unsure if God is enough.
Thirsting is Strahan’s invitation to understand the desires that drive us and to honour them instead of burying them.
“Yes, [Christians] believe and affirm that God is our all,” Strahan said.
“But we’re also broken disordered people.
“We have to learn how to live [the truth about God] into our bodies, our lives and nervous systems. It doesn’t just happen because we say, ‘I’m saved and believe in God’.”
“We have to learn to come and drink.”
Listen to the full episode of UNDISTRACTED with guest Strahan Coleman in the player above, on the Hope 103.2 app or wherever you get your podcasts.