Hunger and Thirst

Passage: Psalm 42

As a parent of young children, I’m regularly frustrated and confounded by my kids’ inability to identify what they need.  Take, for example, food.  Fairly routinely, halfway between breakfast and lunch, or between lunch and dinner, one or both of our kids will:

1. Instigate a fight with their sibling;
2. Ask for TV or candy;
3. Complain of stomach pains;
4. Throw some kind of tantrum; or
5. Perpetrate some act of vandalism around the house.

What’s going on?  They’re on the brink of low-blood-sugar-induced psychopathy.  But when said behaviors rear their ugly heads, and we suggest it’s time for a snack, what do the kids say?  “Leave me alone!  I’m not hungry!”

Our worst behaviors are rooted in deep hunger and thirst.  Our souls were created to subsist not primarily on food and water, but on the presence of God.  The problem is that we’re so out of touch with our soul hunger, and so disconnected with the true source of our sustenance, that we aren’t even aware of what we need.  We distract from our hunger by stimulating ourselves with junk food; beer; bad TV; bad relationships.  We rail against the idiosyncrasies of our neighbors; we complain about the government; we lash out at our loved ones.  What we really need is to have our souls fed.  We need to be replenished by the love of God.

Psalm 42 is the prayer of a soul that hungers and thirsts, and finds its sustenance in the right place.  Read it.  Listen to your soul’s hunger and thirst.  Stop feeding it the wrong stuff.  Stop taking it out in the wrong places.  Go to the one who has what you need.  Be satisfied and set right.