hunger – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

As we hunger on after God he ensures that plenty of life-enhancing nutrients come our way. With him as supplier we don’t fret about scarcity. Rather, we take comfort, even delight, in this wondrous fact. His kingdom into which we have entered and now live overflows in plenty.

‘Supply chain interruption’. The phrase is seldom voiced among those abiding in Jesus, living under his governance. And part of the great news is this – the currency of our Lord’s kingdom. We live by faith. God himself supplies the faith (kingdom currency) needed, and it never ever diminishes.

Everyone has a faith story, even if it is not yet clearly known to them.

We grow to live our lives rooted in things that we believe. . . What we believe about ourselves. What we believe or disbelieve about God, and about the world. Our belief or non-belief about an afterlife beyond the grave.

A person’s behaviors (their routine actions in life) make it clear as to what they actually do believe, what they hold as truth. More about that later.

I first got introduced to the Christian faith as a young child. It was only afterward that I gave much thought to spiritual hunger.

I think everyone gets hungry for God. It is a little like the natural hunger I had that day at the college campus. Yet it is not the same. My mother and father were moved to yearn after God in their time of deep sorrow at the drowning death of their young son. But, whether through a great crisis or simply in a time of honest questionings we sense there is a “something” missing.

For some of us, this hungering is a thing we have not given much thought to. Yet most all people across the world have deep life questions. And we feel the yearning for the something that is beyond ourselves.

In truth we are yearning for him – God. We thirst for his help and we yearn for his companionship. It is him, the One who is ready and able to fill up the hungry space inside us. Indeed, the one by whom and for whom we were made.

French mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal offered a word picture,

“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.” *

“Grant me the courage to change the things I can”.*

I had been a rebel and my stubborn self had grown weary of the struggle. I was finally ready to give up.

For me, giving up meant coming to my senses. It meant the scary but good decision to yield over my will. The road ahead could likely see its own bumpy stretches but I sensed the journey might go much better if I trusted my life (gave myself over) to Jesus Christ. For this to happen, though, I would need to keep wanting him. I found myself wanting to want him.

“Cause me to desire you, Lord”. I offered this cry through the next several years.

Change of character takes time and it begins with turning. Turning a new direction. Desire plays a big role here. The prayer was voiced again and again, “Increase my desire. Grow my desire, please, Lord”.

Wanting God to help change us is akin to growing an appetite.

.The time was the mid-90s. The setting, Tulsa University

“Delicious smell!”, I thought as I tilted my head and let my nostrils draw in the aroma. Few things stir a person’s appetite like catching the whiff of a hot meal in the making, especially following hours on a near-empty stomach.

My volunteer work had brought me to the college apartment complex in hopes of getting in a short visit with some international student friends. I had tried timing my arrival to avoid disturbing their evening meal. The sweet smell of chicken curry floated in the air. Taste buds stirred and my lips moistened.

Desire for a changed life, an entirely changed life, is a little like that.

We all know that natural desire comes through simply being human. We sensed it from our earliest moments, within mere seconds of birth. We craved air right away. You. Me. Each of us fought for our first breath.

Thankfully, we do not remember those stressful entry moments into life. But being human is this way, desires pulling at the whole person. In time we detect somehow that our stirrings are not limited to desires of our body. Our soul, our spirit – those nonphysical interior features of us – hunger as well.

At the top of the appetite list, lies our most meaningful kind of hunger. Our heart hungers. We hunger for something (for someone) beyond the tangible material world. We are made to belong to God. What’s more, we are (astonishingly) designed for routine, joyful interaction with him. His earliest intention for us is that we may grow into the fully human people we were meant to become. The Scripture invites,

“Taste and see. . the Lord is good.”*

Tag: hunger

Abundant

Longings