“The Lord will not let the righteous go hungry, but he denies the wicked what they crave”. Proverbs 10:3
This is a great promise in scripture. That the Lord will not let His people go hungry. What a great comfort. But one thing struck me as I was meditating on this recently- Have I seen righteous people go hungry before?
Paul confessed to being hungry:
“To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.”
1 Corinthians 4:11-13
Surely no Christian will accuse the apostle of not being a “righteous“ man and yet he confessed to going hungry. As such, I am inclined to think the meaning of the passage goes beyond physical food or physical hunger.
We are creatures of desire. Most of what we do is driven by desire. Desire to be rich, desire to be loved, desire to be praised, desire to be happy, desire to be satisfied. Most, if not all, our sinful behaviors have, at their core, a desire to find some sort of lasting fulfillment, pleasure, and/or peace. Even our interest in good things like marriage, education, love, and success have these desires at their core.
If we are paying attention, we realize that all the sinful things we chase in order to fulfill our desires flatter to deceive. Money, love, sex, power, etc. They never give us that peace we are looking for. The Lord’s promise to the wicked is that while they continue to seek happiness, peace, satisfaction from sinful things, they will never find it. Though they may not lack physical food, they will never find the deeper satisfaction and peace which they spend all their lives slaving to find. At the same time, while the righteous might go hungry for physical food, that abiding food that satisfies has been promised to them and they will receive and be satisfied.
Jesus puts it this way:
“Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.""
John 4:13-14
Do you know what it feels like to drink water and never be thirsty again ? Neither do I, but it sounds glorious.
Listen to the words of Christ again:
“Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal."
John 6:27
And He continues.. “Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”" John 6:35 Same concept. Do not seek to be fulfilled through broken cisterns which cannot satisfy. Seek to be fulfilled by the eternal abiding water. The devil whispers lies saying that more will satisfy you. More sex, more money, more fame. Perhaps you are here reading this and you are chasing these things. Have you taken a step back to ask yourself 'Are these things really fulfilling me?' Augustine said, "Oh God you have created us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you". CS Lewis expresses a similar sentiment: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world” Let us pause, reflect and drink from the well which will truly satisfy. Let us not waste all our time and money on that which does not satisfy. Let us be satisfied in what is truly satisfying. Oh Lord, please open our eyes to see that all the deep longings of our hearts and souls find their true satisfaction in You.
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