Back in Texas I would see the occasional homeless person holding a cardboard stating, “will work for food.” This is nothing in comparison to the beggars that I have seen in India and Nepal. I will never forget walking through the bus station in Vijayawada, India and seeing the starving men and women laying on the filthy concrete floors too weak to even beg. I couldn’t seem to shake that image from my head. On our bus ride back to Hyderabad, an unsettling thought came upon me. So many of the people in America were just like those people that I saw on the floor of the bus station, hungry and thirsty. Now I am quite aware of where America ranks on the obesity scales and that most people aren’t starving in the physical sense. I am referring more to the spiritual starvation of America. By spiritual hunger I don’t mean a stirring, motivation, passion, craving, desire, desperation, discomfort, yearning, gnawing, or searching. While I think these are all great words, they describe appetite not hunger. Appetite is the desire for food, while hunger is your actual need for food; it’s primal. Matthew 5:6 says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.” America isn’t hungry for Christ because they have an appetite for the things of this world. I once read that when the stomach is full of wind a man has little appetite to his food. So when one is filled with a windy opinion of his own righteousness, he will not hunger after Christ's righteousness. He who is puffed up with pride thinks he has grace enough already, and will not hunger after more. Also by feeding excessively upon the sweet succulent delights of the world, we lose our hunger for Christ and His grace. You never knew a man who glutted himself upon the world, and at the same time was greatly in love with Christ. While Israel fed with delight upon garlic and onions, they never hungered after manna. The soul cannot be carried to two extremes at once. As the eye cannot look intent on heaven and earth at once, so a man cannot at the same instant hunger greatly after the world, and, at the same time, after righteousness! The love of earthly things will quench the desire of spiritual things. 1 John 2:15 says, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.” If spiritual hunger is primal for every living creature, then why do so many seem to have no hunger for the presence of God? I think that so many people are receiving their nourishment from another source. So many will come and sit at Father’s banqueting table only to push away their plate because their spirit has already been satisfied by their own pride, wealth, sex, greed, beauty, and lust. You cannot force them to eat, nor can you sharpen their hunger at this point. They sit at the table digesting the food of this world.
Now that I have stepped down off of my soapbox, I want y’all to know that while on this race, I have been guilty of sitting at the Lord’s Table while still having an appetite for this world. Pride, food, and my own selfishness have all satiated my hunger for Christ righteousness at some point or another.
That’s all I have…Digest it as you will….
