Rediscovering Hunger

As someone who has fought the weight loss battle (sometimes winning, and often losing) I had what can only be defined as a revelation one day.

I had had a particularly grueling day of manual labor that involved the bane of my existence –my lawn. As me and my 4 sons (They say ‘misery loves company’!) mowed and weed-whacked and hedge-trimmed and whatever else we did for several hours, I began to notice a sensation growing in my belly. It was, of course, the proper response to such a day of sweat and toil. I was hungry.

I suppose that many people would scratch their heads and wonder why this was an even remotely noticeable event in my life. We expend energy, we get hungry…basic science, right?  However, as someone who had developed a lifelong habit of responding to every craving by rushing to the refrigerator or burger place, the feeling was somehow foreign to me. Eating had been my comforter when I was sad, my method for celebrating when I was happy, and sometimes just the way I alleviated boredom. To my amazement, I realized that I couldn’t remember the last time I was truly hungry. I had crowded that extremely normal experience out of my daily life with unrestrained indulgence.

The hunger that I was experiencing was by no means a pleasant experience, hunger never is, in and of itself; but interestingly enough I actually enjoyed it. I found pleasure in eating as a response to a real need, and eating food with real nutritional value as opposed to ingesting empty calories simply because, quite frankly, I was addicted.

“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. (Matthew 4:1-2 ESV)”

There is a lot to be said for the often-neglected Biblical discipline of fasting. Clearly Jesus expected that his followers would fast since He told them in the Sermon on the Mount “…when you fast…” (Matthew 6:16) Not “if”, but “when”.  This, however, is not a posting about fasting as an event but rather about a fasted life.

Jesus, as he prepared to enter the ministry, made fasting the top priority. He seemed to know that the magnitude of His mission as well as His desire for oneness with the Father required a life free from distracting indulgence.

I would define what I’m calling a fasted life as:

The voluntary abstinence from non-productive or distracting indulgences for the purpose of greater intimacy with another (Father God, our spouse, etc).

At the risk of stating the obvious, when we fast, like Jesus, we become hungry. Conversely, when we indulge, we can never achieve or maintain a state of true hunger.  Just like in our natural bodies, our spiritual or inner man is never hungry after a steady stream of materialism and consumerism, worldly entertainment, religious self-righteousness, as well as thought patterns and attitudes of lust, fear, worry, jealousy, unforgiveness, etc.

We will often make the words “hunger” and “craving” interchangeable, but I think a legitimate distinction can be made. I will occasionally say to my wife, “I’m hungry for pizza”, but as I explained above, the chances are pretty good that (a) I am not truly hungry at all, and (b) the desire for pizza is more an attempt to satisfy a passing craving instead of provide sustenance to my physical body.

“Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you.  For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.” 1 John 2:15-17 NLT

Most other versions render the word “craving” in the above passage as “lust”. This is not necessarily a reference to sexual lust, but to strong, unrestricted and destructive desire.  The questions we must ask ourselves are these: When was I last TRULY hungry for the Father? Have I filled my soul with the little treats that this life and my eternal enemy so willing throw at me, that I can’t even imagine being desperately hungry for only manna from heaven, Jesus, the bread of life, or will just any old dinner of fish and onions do (see Numbers 11:5-6, and John 6:22-70)?

Hunger is a very good thing. It keeps us focused on that which is truly beneficial; and we can only be truly hungry when we abandon all the silly things that are not beneficial at all (see 1 Corinthians 6:12).

What are you feasting on? Do you indulge every craving that comes your way, or are you holding out, enduring Hunger, for what will REALLY satisfy?

"Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,  and delight yourselves in rich food.” (Isaiah 55:1-2)