Hunger Pains

And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.“

―John 6:35

Recently I added a quote to my quote file from Calvin Miller’s excellent book, Loving God Up Close: Rekindling Your Relationship with the Holy Spirit.

He wrote: “Life is defined not by what we eat, but what we hunger for.”

That thought intrigued me.

It occurred to me that hunger pains and hunger are not the same thing.

The danger with hunger is that it can be satisfied so easily. Our body doesn’t know the difference between calories. For example, calories from sugar and calories from vegetables are calories. With our busy lives, our body is just casting about looking for fuel. It’ll worrying about the consequences later.

But what comes along with those calories makes all the difference. For example, sugar calories are empty (even toxic with all the additives that are often included), but vegetables calories come along with vital, life sustaining nutrients.

In the same way, our deepest hunger is God; we need God to survive and thrive. But in our fallen state, we have trouble differentiating between God-calories and god-calories and often end up satisfying our hunger for God with substitute god(s).

These “god” calories can even be good things, even God’s things – like trying to satisfy our hunger for God by feasting on working for God or supporting our family or trying to be a good citizen.

But day by day we’re getting leaner in our soul for lack of the vital nutrients that can only come from God.

And then comes the fall (“sugar crash”) and it is so sad and destructive.

The ONE THING for today: Nothing can replace an actual relationship with God. Underneath it all – those drives, passions, and longings – what we really hunger for is God.

Photo by Wesual Click on Unsplash