Those Who Stay Hungry
Ours is a hungry world. Hunger is not a negative, hunger is a necessity for without hunger we would not eat and without eating we would not live. Yes, there are those in our world who lack nourishment and sustenance and are hungry for even one wholesome meal a day. But there is another hunger that is common to us all – the hunger of our souls. The hunger to know we will be fed, cared for, sustained and enabled to flourish. The longing to know we belong in time and space, to Someone. To know that our desires are legitimate or, if not legitimate, able to be healed and made right by Someone greater than ourselves. A hunger that aches for purpose, meaning.
We are in the week of Passover. A time to remember, a time to reflect, a time to make sure we are ‘under the blood’ of the One slain so the death angel will pass over our lives. A time to rejoice in the keeping, delivering power of God. A time to feast on Living Bread and Healing Wine, His body and His blood given for us. A time to be hungry and to be fed. To fan the flame of our hunger for God. To feast on the nourishment of the Lamb that was slain and celebrate His saving blood.
These past months Jim and I have taken communion together on a daily basis. We have done it because we sensed the Lord encouraging us to do so. In taking those few moments each morning to remember Him, what He has done and what we are therefore able to do through Him, our faith and our courage have been made stronger. Each day as we stop and thank Him for the price He paid for our freedom, we are aware of yet another dimension of who He is and our soul hunger is satisfied – until the next hour or next day or next moment when we once again hunger for Him. In the natural we eat and then get hungry again: it is the same in a healthy spiritual life. The more we know Him, the more we ‘consume’ His word and enjoy His presence each day, the more our spirit and soul appetite for righteousness is expanded and awakened. The more we long to taste and see and know that He is good.
There is another joyful ‘discipline’ I’ve been enjoying lately. I put ‘discipline’ in brackets intentionally, because we tend to think of discipline as punishment, that which must be endured in pain. My meaning is not that but rather, the art of being a disciple of Jesus. One who sits at His feet and learns, one who develops a routine that causes me to hunger more and more for Him. This discipline I’m employing is singing the scriptures. As I sing to Him this ‘new song’ I learn so much about Him and myself! I am so encouraged to listen for heaven’s truth as I sing out that which I didn’t know my heart held. For instance, Psalm 23 has been the main scripture that comes to mind as I sing to Him. We are all familiar with this passage and I thought I was, until I heard myself singing:
‘You prepare for me a table filled with all I need.
My soul is fed and I am served
Where my enemy can see.
He with empty soul and cold heart
Must watch as I am fed.
I am healed, empowered, restored as by
Still waters I am led.’
And another time:
‘The Lord has prepared a feast for me
and my enemies must stand and watch me as I sit and feast.
They are starving, dying for lack of blood, lack of bread
While I flourish and feast on Him.
My weakened enemy has faltered and is falling, falling down’.
It isn’t about rhythm and rhyme but rather, about what He wants us to know that our deep soul is already aware of. I sing over Ireland, I sing over America, I sing over so many things and in it all He feeds me with truth that HE is able. HE is near. HE has offered all His sheep need to eat and be fully filled, while our enemies are weakened as they hunger without the Truth that sustains and gives life.
In this Holy Week, I invite you to join with me in taking communion in the quiet privacy of your home. Give space and time for Him to speak to you deeper truths than what you have known. Sing His word over yourself, family, neighborhood, nation. Feast on His presence and be filled. Then, like the Hebrew nation of old, walk out of your slavery and into the freedom of being a daughter, a son. And celebrate! Day Three is here, and He is risen, indeed.
Within this blog is a prophetic utterance for Ireland. Psalm 23 is the shepherd’s psalm, and in the natural yours is a land known for sheep and shepherds. The time is NOW for you to be nourished, Ireland, for the deep longing of your souls as individuals and as a nation, to be met. As you pause to seek His face in these critical days He is hearing and has heard your cry for that which nourishes and sustains not only yourselves but the next generations. Feast with Him – the table is prepared for you. Be hungry –feast on Him and become hungrier still until you see yourself sitting at His banqueting table under His banner of love, as your enemies perish and fall. This is your moment. Day Three is here, dear Flourishing Land. Live!