Today
too many Christians have lost their hunger for God. Instead of coming
into the Lord's presence hungry for more of His fullness, our
thoughts are held hostage to worldly pursuits and fleshly
distractions. At best, we are merely curious about spiritual
realities, but not truly hungry.
Let me tell you a story that
illustrates what I mean. We have a little dog named Sophie. Sophie
loves people food. To her, eating people food is the culinary
equivalent of entering the Kingdom of God. She loves our food. She
even has a Bible verse that she claims in faith, "Even the dogs
get the crumbs" (Matt 15:27). When my wife and I share a meal,
Sophie will sit at our feet, squint her eyes, and stare at us (she
thinks squinting makes her cuter). Any food that falls to the floor
instantly vanishes into her mouth. No matter how much of her food she
has already eaten, she is always hungry for ours. Our home has a
small, fenced-in yard outside our porch where Sophie plays. Although
the fence surrounds the area, there are gaps where the pickets don't
quite reach to the ground. If Sophie wanted, she actually could
squeeze under the fence and get out, but she normally has no reason
to try. Occasionally she will get curious and go as far as the gate,
stand there a while and look out, but she doesn't leave the yard.
One
day, though, my wife decided to feed a few slices of stale bread to
the birds, which nest on the other side of the fence. When Sophie
went out an hour later, she immediately noticed a human food smell in
the air, which she tracked to the bread. In less than a heartbeat she
found a little gap under the picket fence, flattened herself to the
ground, and then shimmied through the fence to the bread on the other
side. It was gone in less than a minute. My point is this: Hunger
will take you where mere curiosity would never go.
My friend, God is
looking for hungry people. Blessed are they who hunger. He is seeking
people who are truly seeking Him. Indeed, He has bread from Heaven
for us, and it is eternally satisfying. We cannot afford to settle
into the routine of a fenced-in reality, not when God has eternal
food prepared for us. Let us, therefore, follow our hunger as we
pursue the presence of God.
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