What Does it Mean to Hunger for God? (An adaptation from Hungry for God: Hearing God’s Voice in the Ordinary and the Everyday by Margaret Feinberg)
I don’t know anything about real hunger. While billions suffer in starvation and poverty, I live behind the plush curtain. Yet hunger is woven into the fabric of our humanness—no matter where you live. Appetite is a primitive desire that doesn’t discriminate. Every human has felt its pangs. Without an appetite, we slip into starvation and even death. Hunger is the gnawing reminder that in order to have strength, we must have sustenance.
If physical hunger is a set of feelings focused around the stomach that lead a person to search for food, then spiritual hunger is a set of experiences or longings that compel a person to search for God. Just as my body needs food to survive, my spirit needs God to thrive. A divine appetite drives me to pursue a vibrant relationship with God—one in which I find my sustenance and strength.
Unlike physical hunger, which can be satiated by food, our spiritual appetites can only be quelled by God. But is it possible to dine on an intangible being? How do we feast upon something we cannot see, touch, or taste? Over the last several years, I’ve learned that God’s voice is the only entrée that can nourish our ethereal cravings. Hearing and experiencing, rather than eating, assuages spiritual hunger.
The moments in my life when I’ve been the most spiritually hungry and the most spiritually satiated share a common trait: God’s voice. My spiritual hunger grumbles loudest when I feel furthest from God. Though I cling to the mental assertion that God is everywhere and he promises to never leave nor forsake, I’ve encountered days, weeks, and months, where I still wonder, Where are you, God?
I long for a single word to appease my spiritual belly. When God finally breaks the silence, the sound of his voice is spiritual nourishment, his voice a banquet for my soul—every syllable a tasty morsel, every expression flavored with love.
Longing to know him.
Longing to experience him.
Longing to hear him.
Is that what it means to hunger for God?
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And the more we feed on Him, the hungrier we get for more of Him. Transformed by Hunger is our current church theme, pursuing Him above His Kingdom, His Face before His Hand and just longing for His presence. Awesome!
For the last several months I’ve been learning to just “be” in His presence. When I center on him and sit silentlhy and intently in His presence without asking or telling, it is amazing the inner transformation and satiation that takes place — not looking for any particular outcome, just “being” in His being.
Quite good. Reminds me of our Pastor Sharon Brown’s book, Sensible Shoes. A novel telling a compelling story of people like us, who struggled together to meet God in life-changing ways through the spiritual disciplines.
Our activist Evangelical and Progressive friends need to ponder this message deeply. We only produce burnt-out husks if we continually implore people to action (acts of mercy or sharing the Faith) without teaching them how to “feed off of God.”
It is true that God often meets us “on the way,” but I don’t believe that is the chief way He desires to nourish us.
Helen:
His Face, not just His hands, indeed!
Any one remember the book _Hinds Feet on High Places_? Long ago that book implanted in me the desire to be intimate with God.