Hungry?

Malnourished, famished, parched, starving, thirsty.   


All words that strike in me reminder of a deep physical need.  My mouth is dry just thinking about it.  I've never experienced the extremes of these physical ailments, but I know it's bad enough to go even without one meal.  


Feast, full, quenched, nourished.


All convey so much in contrast.  Instead of hurt and longing, fullness and satisfaction.  From poor and pitiful to rich and jubilant.  In one since, the more hungry and thirsty we come to the table, the more we enjoy and appreciate the spread before us.  To truly be made full, we have to know we are malnourished and weak.

"But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

 When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”  But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’  And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’  And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’  So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’  And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’  And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.  For I tell you,  none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’” Luke 14: 13-24

I can think of many excuses that I might have said in response to the servant. In fact many excuses I give now to keep from truly feasting on Christ and God's Word.  I'm confident in the grace of Christ that I will be at the great banquet, but I know I miss out on the great feast that spreads itself before me even now.  As Ann Voskamp asks us to share about what it means to feast on God's Word, the first things I can think of is famine and thirst, of wanting and longing.  Complacency easily turns our eyes away from Him who said, "Come to me and you will never thirst again."  

Right now, for me to feast means to come again, famished and parched, and take that first bite settling into God's Word and seeking fullness that can be found in Him Alone. 

And Repeat...