Sabbath: February 18, 2018

When you’re hungry, how does it feel?

In this country, a lot of us have the luxury of not feeling hungry very long. Within a few hours, or minutes, or seconds, we have the means to satisfy our grumbling stomachs.

That’s not the kind of hunger of so many people in the world. Just over a year ago, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that 795 million people go to bed hungry, suffering from chronic undernourishment. That’s 1-in-9 people in our world. Most of whom live in what we call developing countries.

When Jesus fasted for forty days, he showed us something: that our spiritual life is connected to our eating life. We knew this from the practice of communion: Jesus is with us in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup. But Jesus is also with us in the absence of bread and wine, in the hunger for more than the brief satisfaction of a single meal. Jesus is with us in that deep hunger for a world where all people are fed from the abundance that God has given.

Lent is about reconnecting with that deep hunger for holy fullness. Skip a meal today or tomorrow, and don’t snack in between. That hunger you’ll start to feel? That’s how we’re supposed to feel in our hunger for God—and for God’s abundance for every person in this world.

When you’re hungry, how does it feel? 

Go find out.

Drew Willson