Being Hungry

Usually we think of ourselves as being hungry when it’s close to meal time or we’ve skipped a meal... Nothing to be concerned about because we know dinner will be served and the hunger cravings satisfied. On the other hand, when we think of hunger in the abstract sense, those pictures of starving children, the homeless and the destitute come to mind. I say "abstract sense" because if we’ve never experienced that kind of hunger, we can’t really know what it is. We can only imagine...and those who are hungry are those "other people", not us.

The hunger I’m going to talk about here isn’t the hunger of the body, but the hunger of the spirit...the hunger in our souls.... the hunger for God. It's a hunger which exists in all of us.  It's a hunger we might push aside and try to ignore...pretend isn’t there and try to bury in the busyness of our lives. The problem is, it never goes away but continues to gnaw at our insides until we recognize its presence and take steps to feed it. 

Last night a friend and I went to dinner. During the course of conversation, when speaking of a group she was involved with, she said, "I don’t know if I want to continue. It doesn’t feed me."

Four simple words, "It doesn’t feed me" and I responded with a resounding "yes" of sudden understanding. She had very simply and effectively put my hunger for more of God into words.

I had once shared with someone that I felt like a starving person looking at the delicious, sumptuous banquet laid out before me but not allowed to partake. While looking at all that food, my mouth watering to taste it, I was expected to be satisfied with the few crumbs put on my plate. I was not... and am not... satisfied with crumbs. I agreed with my friend. If it does not feed me...if God does not feed me through it.... it should not be a part of my life.

I can imagine some people responding to that statement with, "That sounds pretty selfish." It isn’t. My spirit, like my body, needs food to survive and grow. The simple truth is, the more we are fed, the more there is within us to share and feed to others.