Hungry

 …for forty days, being tempted by the devil.  And he ate nothing during those days.  And when they were ended, he was hungry.  Luke 4:2 ESV

Jesus was forty days in the wilderness without food.  Some days, I can’t go forty minutes without food!

In the wilderness, you discover that there are things that you thought you needed that you may not really have needed.  Much of what we consider necessity is, in fact, luxury.

That’s not to say that food is a luxury, though the way we indulge here in the US would certainly fall in the category of “luxury.”  Food is necessary for life and health.  But you can live for a little while without it.  Apparently, you can live for about forty days without eating.  But you will be hungry.

We tend to think of hunger as being a bad thing.  We avoid getting to the point that we truly feel hungry.  Perhaps, this is what makes us picky eaters and indulgent parents.  It can also make us fat!

But I believe that hunger is actually a very good thing.  It is a feeling that we need to experience.  It is important!  Hunger reminds us of the difference between needs and wants.  It also has the power to develop gratitude in us.

The wilderness brings us to a place of hunger.  

For the descendants of Jacob, the wilderness was the path from Egypt to the Promised Land, from slavery to freedom.  For them, it was a physical wilderness – a place where food and water were scarce.

In the wilderness, there is scarcity.  Scarcity leads to hunger.  And hunger humbles us.

It opens our eyes.

in the wilderness, we find opportunity.  We learn simple, but vital truths that are hard to learn in times of plenty.  

In the wilderness, food is scarce.  For Jesus, it was completely lacking for forty days.  For Him, it wasn’t even DAILY bread in this season.  It was NO bread!

And yet, when tempted to make His own bread, Jesus held fast to His trust in the Father.  He trusted that God would provide in His own way and in His own time, and Jesus did not waver in that trust.

There is a hard and uncomfortable truth in the matter of daily bread that cannot be overlooked.  Before the daily bread, there was hunger.

And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.      Deuteronomy 8:3 ESV

Sometimes, God lets His children go hungry.

This is not something that we like to think about.  It is definitely not something that we want to experience.  And it kind of goes against our modern perspective on God.  

On some level, most of us have bought into the idea that God just wants to bless His children.  While it is true that God wants to bless us, it is also true that we often do not recognize His blessings.  We have created a mental picture of what we think His blessing will look like, but in fact, our mental picture often looks like indulgence - not blessing.  

As we come to understand that God is our Provider, we must be careful that we do not get confused.  Sometimes, God will bring us into seasons of abundance.  Sometimes, though, we will experience seasons of just enough.  Both of these circumstances are evidence of the blessing of God.  And beyond the seasons of “just enough” there may be seasons that seem like “not enough.”  

Blessings sometimes look like roadblocks, closed doors, and even sometimes loss.

And - this is a tough one - sometimes our losses are someone else’s blessings.  Sometimes, we must feel pain so that someone else can experience life.

A few years back, I had a friend whose brother was suffering from advanced kidney failure.  Without a transplant, he would have died.  My friend subjected herself to the pain of surgery to donate a kidney, followed by a long, uncomfortable recovery, all so that her brother could have life.

Jesus Christ submitted Himself to unfathomable pain and suffering and rejection, so that we could have forgiveness of sin and eternal life.  For our blessing, He experienced abandonment by His Father in the most painful moment of His life!

If we genuinely want to follow Christ, we should not expect that things will always go well for us.  And we should not be surprised that God sometimes lets us go hungry for a season.

But He does not let us go hungry forever.  He will not let us starve to death.  It is when we are hungry that we can truly come to understand that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Reflect: Has there been a time when you felt like God was not providing for your needs?  Could it be that what you lack could be the Lord’s means of directing you back to His Word, and calling you to trust in Him alone?

Remember: Hunger helps us understand provision.