The Hunger for God

UV 3699/10000 The Hunger for God He has filled the hungry with good things; and sent the rich away empty-handed. Luke 1 v 53 This uni-verse seems to endorse Steve Job’s maxim, “Stay hungry.” But what it says is that we should be filled with a hunger for God. We should long, crave, desire strongly a personal relationship with God. If we are self satisfied, complacent, not hungering for righteousness, content with our material lot or the things that our flesh desires, then, we will be sent away empty handed by God. The former are blessed with all manner of good things in keeping with the promise, “Seek first ( or with utmost priority and greatest longing) His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” The prophetic utterance of Zacharias, the priest was echoed in the teaching of Jesus in His sermon on the mount: “Blessed are those who hunger after righteousness for they shall be satisfied.” In short, we are blessed or favoured by God when we do not hanker or hunger after the pleasures, wealth, power, beauty, fame of this world but we hunger after righteousness, holiness, goodness, beauty, grace, mercy, power, favour of God. We seek the rule of God through Christ in our hearts, minds and lives, relationships and workspace. We do not merely seek it but are obsessed with this pursuit of the things of God, how to do things God’s way, not our way. Those who seek the world and what it has to offer will feel empty, never satiated but always frustrated, longing for something more, something different. Even after they achieve their goals, they will find it futile, vain, meaningless like Solomon after he departed from the ways of God. God will send some pinpricks to burst the balloons of their caprice, vanity, egoism, selfishness, pride, lust. It will be tantalizing for them as they struggle to push the boulder all the way to the top of the mountain and every time it rolls back to the base of the mountain. In contrast, the Lord will satisfy the hunger of the godly, the righteous by faith by answering prayers beyond their asking or imagination, by teaching them from His word, by imparting a sense of contentment and gratitude for blessings received though not deserved. The more we experience the agape love of God in Christ, the more we desire it, the greater our hunger for the presence of God, the Person of God. We realize that He is the One who can be anything, do anything to satisfy our hunger for Him.