Dear Friends,
Butajira, Ethiopia, 2004. I was in a vast open-air market along with tens of thousands of buyers, sellers, hawkers and gawkers… none of whom looked like me. Out of nowhere an Ethiopian mother’s eyes met mine and she came hurrying towards me. Standing before me she pleaded for me to take her malnourished and starving infant child. A desperate mother. The reflection of that emotional encounter is still bitter.
Hunger can violate civility and dominate every other good instinct. While the “Hunger Games” movie version attracted millions of viewers and grossed millions of dollars, hunger really is no game. Corporate ad agencies have employed “hunger” to entice us to spend more than we earn, to enter a relationship without commitment, to take credit for what is not ours, to invest in that which has no return, and to corrupt that which is sacred. Hunger shows up in all kinds of ways, and it always has the potential to control and to conquer.
Snickers Candy began their highly successful “You’re not you when you’re hungry” ad campaign during Super Bowl XLIV. It featured celebrity actors who, upon ingesting a Snickers candy bar, were transformed from a hungry grump to a satisfied human being. A big promise delivered by a candy bar.
Jesus wasn’t a stranger to all kinds of hunger. Speaking to hungry crowds gathered on the Galilean seaside, He provided bread and fish for their empty stomachs and spoke these words of promise to their hungry hearts, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” Matthew 5:6. Translated, “you are most you when you have this kind of hunger.”
There is a certain kind of hunger that is not a game, and it is not a chocolate bromide to satisfy a sweet tooth. It is a spiritual hunger that comes with a promise of everlasting fulfillment and satisfaction.
God’s blessings “being most you.”
~Wynn