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Are You Starving Yet? June 29, 2009 By Sophia
Gordon Have you ever
been starving? No, I mean really hungry, the kind of hungry
that would make you do anything to satisfy it? The kind of hungry
that makes you want to consume anything and everything in sight
just so you can be filled? If your answer
is “No,” then read on. But if your answer is “Yes,” think about
this: have you ever been that hungry for God and the things of God?
Has your desire to please God, to know Him, or to access the heights
and depths of His glory ever consumed you to the point that it was
all you could think about? Recently, I
started thinking about what it meant to be truly hungry (ignore
the fact that this happened while on an extended fast). I started
to think about having an insatiable passion for God, about the kind
of passion that moves and motivates you. I must say that
I've not always been passionate about my walk with God. I've not
always been “on fire,” as some would say. Like many people, I've
been quite comfortable with the routines of Christian living. I
liked coming to church, singing on the praise team, choir, teaching
Sunday school, etc. Maybe, every now and then, I'd extend myself
enough to go greet a new visitor or talk to a wayward saint, but
mostly I was okay with the ho-hum, easygoing Christian life. Then, after
going to a ladies conference (I suspect God was working on me even
before this), I got hit with a sharp pain. It was one I had experienced
before in the physical realm, but it had been a long time since
I had such a sensation in the spiritual. It was a hunger pain. Suddenly,
it was as if a side of me that had been quiet for years (ok, maybe
in a coma is more like it) had awakened and all I wanted to do was
gobble up every godly thing in sight. I've since realized
that hunger makes you do crazy things. Hunger, in the natural, makes
you lose your inhibitions and eat out of garbage cans; hunger in
the spiritual makes you want to get rid of all the garbage in your
life. Hunger in the natural makes you steal from others to
satisfy your own physical appetite; hunger in the spiritual makes
you give of yourself to others to quench their spiritual appetite.
Hunger for God makes you die to self daily; it makes you pray more,
give more, fast more. Job said it best when he said “…I have
esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food”
(Job 23:12). Hunger creates a passion in you that only God can fill. I don't know
where you are in your walk with God. I don't know if you are “fired
up” or if you have fallen into the pitfalls of “religiosity.” You
know what I'm talking about; it's the place where coming to church
becomes more of just what you do on a Sunday, Wednesday, Friday
(any or all of the above) and you've lost your place of fervency
for God. If you are in
either place, examine yourself. When was the last time that you
felt like you could “…taste and see that the Lord is good?”
(Psalm 34:8). When was the last time that your zeal for God
consumed you? When was the last time that you desired God more than
anything else in the world? Now I'm not
talking about working for God, but, rather, having a true relationship
with God. God doesn't need more employees; he needs more devotees.
When people that are hungry find food, they latch on to it fiercely
and never let go. The Samaritan woman at the well understood this
feeling as her encounter with Jesus caused her to forget her physical
thirst and she “left her waterpot…and saith…come see a man, which
told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?”(John
4:28-29). When our hunger is being satisfied, then we will tell
others about what we have received and be an effective witness.
Are you starving? Sophia Gordon is a minister's wife and mother to two wonderful kids. In her spare time, she enjoys reading and writing articles for her church's newsletter. Currently, she is ending an extended fast, and her kids are looking mighty delicious at the moment. |
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