Food for the Hungry Soul

Food for the Hungry Soul For He satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. Psalm 107 v 9 Some people throughout history and all over the globe had all their earthly desires more than satisfied and yet they seemed to be dissatisfied with their lives. The reason is that while they fed and clothed and satisfied their bodily desires in all kinds of ways, they ignored the need or longing of their souls. Our minds are the mouths of our souls. Our souls are forever hungry and longing for food for the soul. This is the food that will bring us into intimacy with our Creator God who satisfies our every need and fulfils the longing of our soul. An occasional top up of spiritual food just would not do just as an occasional meal does not satisfy the need of our bodies. It is written in scripture that “ if you open your mouth, I will fill it with good things.” If we open our minds to God, He will fill it with good news. Our minds abhor bad news like sickness, failure, shame and death. Our minds desire to incessantly believe and receive, to hear and do good things. We need to nurture this kind of spiritual hunger and not try to quench or satisfy it with substitutes for truth and goodness. Jesus said, “ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be satisfied.” Hunger and thirst for righteousness is then a pre-condition to being blessed and being wholly satisfied. As I lay injured and bleeding from multiple wounds on a bomb blast scene, I understood the real meaning of thirst for every cell in my body was thirsty due to loss of blood and I was crying out for water. Indeed, deep longing is the kind of thirst that Christ experienced on the cross when He cried out, “ I am thirsty.” The Psalmist wrote, “ Young lions can go hungry but they that seek the Lord shall be satisfied.” The young lions are people with power, wealth and influence. They can often go spiritually hungry in their ignorance of God like the rich young man who asked Jesus, “ What must I do to have eternal life?” We can never have eternal life or the goodness of God by “doing things” or the concept of “karma”. For He shall send the rich empty away but the hungry, He shall satisfy with His good promises or the Word. He shall satisfy us as with marrow and fatness. We cannot be satisfied by things that money can buy or labour can win. We cannot be satisfied with occasional spiritual inspiration or worship as the poor make do with just a chicken soup from the charity kitchen. We will be satisfied with an eternal personal covenant relationship with God. He shall satisfy us with the sure mercies that He has promised us as we are descendants by faith of King David and of His Son Jesus. As we descend from Him, we shall ascend to stand before His throne of mercy. The book of Revelation says, “For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes”. Meanwhile, we should be like the fish that keep coming to the surface and open our mouths or our minds to take in gulps of food and water from His living waters. Prateep V Philip