Almost a year ago, I decided that I wanted to make some changes in my diet, so I begin doing what is called the Makers Diet. While I will spare you a lot of the details, this diet, like many others, offered you a variety of food options…just not many that I wanted. Every day during the diet, I picture one specific thing. There was one food that just kept haunting my mind, calling to the hunger in me and making me crazy. I pictured walking into Mellow Mushroom, and getting my large cheese pizza and devouring the entire thing. That pizza is the best I have ever had, every time. While I don’t get to eat there all the time, when I am hungry…I know what I want – Mellow Mushroom Pizza!
Even now, though I am not on the diet, I will experience hunger before a trip to Mellow Mushroom. I will watch what I eat during the day so that I can experience hunger before dinner, and then enjoy fulfilling that hunger with the best pizza on the planet.
Hunger is a gift from God
I think hunger is one of the greatest things God created in us. I am talking both of physical hunger for food, and of a spiritual hunger, for more of God. Hunger can feel like a curse, or like a problem to be solved, but hunger is a blessing from God. Hunger, you see, helps us to define what we want. Hunger has a way of purifying. It is when we are hungry that we work, with utmost focus and dilegence, to get that which will satisfy us.
Hunger must be cultivated
Currently, as I am writing this, I am sitting in a coffee shop, and I keep looking over and seeing some amazing snacks. Right now, physical hunger is being cultivated in me by my environment. If I were sitting outside, away from the scented influence of food, this hunger would likely not be as strong. Right now, my physical hunger is being influenced. In the same way, if we are to have spiritual hunger, it must be cultivated. A hunger for God, and for the things of God, does not come by accident. It can be sought after through reading, through disciples and through placing yourself in environments that invite you to hunger afte God. One of the many blessings of the Church is that it offers an environment that invites hunger into the life of a Christ follower.
Those who are hungry will be satisfied?
In one of Jesus’ most famous sermon’s, he talks through a series of scenarios will be true in His Kingdom. In Matt 5, we find him declaring, “those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be satisfied.” Now when we hear the word hunger, usually our minds first go to physical hunger. There is no promise that this hunger will find satisfaction. For those of you who go to bed with a full stomach tonight, count yourselves as blessed on this earth. In this sermon, Jesus isn’t talking about a type of physical hunger. He is describing the reality of being hungry (spiritually) for more of God. Hungry for more of His presence in our lives, more of His truth in our area, more of His Kingdom come…he is saying that when you hunger for these things, you will be satisfied. A hunger for God, and for the things of God, will not return null-in-void.
A Common Hunger
I remember when Water’s Edge first started, the common thread of those who gathered was a desire to see more of God in our lives. The only commonality for a few of us who gathered in a living room, was the fact that we found a common desire…a hunger for God. So, we prayed. We asked God to show himself to us and show himself to others around us. We asked, and begged, that God would draw the college-age generation to Him…and that He would use our gatherings as a way to introduce him to others.
I look at Water’s Edge today on a given Tuesday night, and I find the hunger within growing once again. Some would look at all that God has done in our ministry over the past years and say that God has fulfilled…He has taken our hunger and replaced it with a meal. I like to look at it another way. I love what I witness as we gather together every Tuesday night. I see the way God is moving in our ministry, and I like to believe this is the awesome appetizer, a small snack as we hunger for the feast that is to come.
I am hungry for more of God.
