Hunger

I exercise regularly. I wake up at 4:20 am and go to the gym 3-4 times a week. On the other days, I throw in some stretching or competitive sports. And I don’t tell you this to brag. In fact, I don’t do this because I particularly enjoy it, nor do I train to be in a bodybuilder competition. 

I work out often because I really like food. Sorry. I love food. I love burning calories and then eating them. I love savory, sweets, salads, smoothies, and so much more. And I’m not unfair with food. In fact, I think Taco Tuesday is discriminatory. It should be Taco Everyday (praise the Lord). 

I especially love eating after working out. After exercising, I am hungry. Not just kind of hungry, but deeply hungry with a chance of getting “hangry” (hunger + anger = hangry). So, when I sink my teeth into a burrito or sip down a favorite smoothie, I feel like a new person. 

What about you? Have you ever experienced this type of hunger before? Can you remember that feeling when your hunger was relieved? 

The idea of hunger is common to all of us. We all have hungered for something. Whether it be the perfect meal, the perfect mate, or the perfect mission, we have all had an appetite and acted accordingly. Sometimes our hunger has gotten the best of us, and we’ve consumed too much or even been consumed by our desires. Sometimes our hunger feels unending, and our stomachs or souls consistently feel discontent. And sometimes we find ourselves hungry because we’ve tasted something so good that we’re full, but we still want more. A.W. Tozer wrote it this way: 

“O God, I have tasted Your goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want You; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Your glory, I pray, so that I may know You indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, ‘Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.’ Then give me grace to rise and follow You up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long.” ― A.W. Tozer

Oh, to be filled with a hunger and thirst like that! It is this type of hunger and thirst that we see throughout the Scriptures. This desire for God is expressed through beautiful prayers in the Psalms, such as:

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” - Psalm 41:1-2 (NIV)

“You, 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. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips, my mouth will praise you.” - Psalm 63:1-5 (NIV)

This type of hunger and thirst for God is correlated with life-or-death language. The types of prayers that proclaim: “Without God, I will not survive.” In the same way, we cannot survive without food or water. Most people can stay alive 7-10 days without food and 3-5 days without water. However, none of us truly has life for even one day without the Presence and Power of our Lord. The expressions of hunger and thirst in the Psalms and throughout the Scriptures echo what Vincent de Paul once said, “Food is to the body what prayer is to the soul.”

This is the type of hunger that Jesus displayed in His life. When His disciples met Him at Jacob’s Well in John 4, they told Him to eat something. He responded by saying that His food is to do the will of His Father. Oh, to be so hungry for the Lord that all our other hungers seem trivial! 

For many of us, this type of language about hungering and thirsting for God sounds good. But beneath the surface, being hungry is not being happy. Being thirsty is not thriving. Yet, the language of Scripture and the invitation of Jesus is the exact opposite. In Matthew 5:6, He taught, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” 

Jesus connects two things in His famous beatitudes. He uses the word μακάριος, which means “happy” or “supremely blessed,” and then connects it to those who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness. The Scriptural idea of righteousness portrays right relationships with God and others, expressed through just, merciful, compassionate, and loving actions, especially to those who are marginalized. In other words, we are happy when we are hungry for God and His righteous reign in our lives and world. We are blessed when we hunger and thirst for God. 

What about you? Are you happy when you’re hungry? Are you blessed when you’re thirsty? Jesus tells us we will be happy and blessed for hungering and thirsting. So, how can we become hungry and happy? I’d like to propose the following: 

Our posture matters. When our posture says we’re full, we never know that we’re actually hungry. But when our posture is anchored in humility, we know that we are always hungry and thirsty for more of God. And the truth is that we are always in need. We are created beings, meaning we need the Creator to survive. There’s never a moment when we have it all together or have figured it all out. There’s never a second in which we can control everything. The only thing we can control is ourselves, and because of this, we must continue to posture ourselves in humble dependence upon the Lord. 

The author of Hebrews encouraged the early Christians to know that Jesus is our great high priest who knows us and welcomes us. The author wrote, “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Heb. 4:16).” This is such good news. A posture that is rooted in humility and truth acknowledges our time of need is not just when bad stuff happens, but ALL THE TIME. 

This is the posture we must position ourselves in as we grow hungrier for God and the things of God. We must posture ourselves before Him, recognizing He is God and we are not, acknowledging He doesn’t need anything and we need Him, and petitioning Him for His promises. Never forget: you and I and every other person are always desperately in need, and there’s only One Thing that can meet that need. Let this be our starting posture.

2. Prioritize 

Stephen Covey said, “Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.” Ain’t that the truth. Each day, we find ourselves filling our time, schedules, and lives with a variety of immediate things that arise. Although we might address these things, we find ourselves prioritizing the wrong things. 

When Jesus spoke to Martha in Luke 11, He told her that Mary had chosen the better thing. What was Mary doing? Sitting at Jesus’ feet and being with Him. There will ALWAYS be a to-do list. Our lives are like laundry: it never ends. This is why we must prioritize what matters most. When we don’t, we find ourselves hungering and thirsting for the wrong things, and consistently feeling discontent, disconnected, and disarrayed.

What do we do? Prioritize what, or rather WHO, matters most in your day. Start with it. Center your lives around it, just like the Israelites centered their tribes around the tent of meeting. Keep coming back to it. Give God the central seat on the throne of your heart. When we do this, everything else finds its rightful place, and the hunger of our hearts rises to what actually matters most: being with God. Gary Keller wrote it this way, "What's the ONE THING you can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?" We know who the One Thing is, and if we want to hunger for Him, we must prioritize our lives around Him.

3. Practice   

What we do forms who we become. Our habits lead to behaviors which lead to character. It is true: what we desire is what we become. This is why it is so important to posture ourselves in humility and prioritize the Lord in our lives, and then implement set practices in our daily lives that help to hunger for God. 

There are so many practices that God invites us to do in our lives with Him. Prayer, Communion, Giving, Serving, Loving, Studying His Word, among many others. It might seem daunting to look at all the practices we are invited to include in our lives and try to prioritize them in our schedules. I will also say it is even more terrifying to think about what our lives will look like without these practices.

Without cultivating a deep prayer life, regular time in God’s Word, accountability and discipleship relationships, and consistent rhythms of giving and serving others, we will find that we continue to hunger for things that will leave us empty. But when we practice the things God calls us to do, we will experience His fullness and crave only that. 

There’s a reason we don’t return to certain restaurants or eat certain things anymore: we’ve tasted something better. We will never find anything better or anything more fulfilling than practicing the Presence of God in our lives through prioritizing what He’s called us to do and posturing ourselves dependently before Him. 

The world tells us when we’re hungry, we’re hangry. The Kingdom tells us when we’re hungry, we’re happy. Jesus shows us that the best food for our souls is doing the will of our Father. And when we taste of the Lord, we will see that He is good and be satisfied, and mysteriously, we will also hunger for more. 

I’m going to go eat now. What about you?