Hungry?

Hunger is perhaps the most common experience among humans.  We've all been hungry, get hungry and will be hungry.  We fill this hunger from the moment we are born and it becomes a driving force in our lives from then on.  Truly, we all experience hunger.

But, we do not all eperience hunger for the same things necessarily.  I have never found an appetite for snails, yet escargot is quite the delicacy I am told.  I find myself hungering for some good ole liver and onions while my wife would rather eat the place mat.

Hungering for a particular thing requires that 1) we have a knowlege of it's existence and 2) we have developed a taste for it.  Sometimes, developing a taste requires very little as in a taste for sugar seems to be for most, while coffee usually requires a bit more time and trial.

Jesus said, "Blessed are they that hunger and  thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled" (Matt 5:6).  But who is it that hungers and thirsts for righteousness?  It is they that have come to understand there is such a thing and have developed a taste for it by experiencing it.  And the more one eperiences it, the more one hungers for it.

Those of us who have developed a taste for coffee, look forward to that first cup of the day.  We savor its aroma and sip the hot brew with delight.  Getting up and preparing for that cup is not a chore but a daily blessing we greet each morning with passion.  Blessed are they who really love coffee for they will be filled with a joyous morning experience.  OK, I've gone to far with this analogy, but you get my meaning.

When we develop a taste for righteousness by daily embracing the Word of God and walking in the light it sheds on our path, we greet each day with passion as we turn to God in prayer, turn the pages of the Bible in expectation and turn to face the world equipped to let His light flow through us to those living in darkness.

If all this sounds like Greek to you, then perhaps you have not developed a real hunger for righteousness, possibly you need to make time to be alone with God in prayer and Bible study on a daily basis.  You can start with just a verse for the day and a couple of minutes of reflection followed by a brief prayer.  In time you can begin to expand the time alone with Him.  

You will find, as you develop the taste for Quiet Time with God that you have a hunger for it and that you look forward to it.  That time with the Lord will begin in turn to develop a hunger for righteous living and for opportunities for His light to shine through us to others.

I'll tell you a secret.  I have come to the place, where I spend my quiet time with God even before my first cup of coffee.  My first cup when waking up is filled with the aroma of God.  Jus' Sayn.