Time to Wake Up and Fill Your Belly!

In our house Saturday mornings are for Joe to catch up on some sleep from waking up through the week at 3:30 to drive to work, me trying to be still and quiet so that actually happens and puppy girls and puppy cat wanting to roam the backyard wilderness. So the day usually ends up with me sitting outside in my pjs, drinking coffee and reading, thinking, praying...you get the picture. 

On the weekdays, I get up around 4:20 to say goodbye to Joe, immediately eat breakfast then begin my day. So on Saturdays, when Joe sleeps in, my tummy is pretty darn rumbly by the time he gets up. I know, I could go ahead and eat. I realize that I could cook him breakfast in bed. But I really want to stay as quiet and still as possible for him to rest. So I just let my tummy grumble and try to hold off starvation with my morning vitamins. <insert dramatic music, here>

So this morning, let’s be honest. How many of us have EVER really been hungry. Not the first world version of, “darn, it’s an hour past noon, I am late for lunch, hungry.” But have we ever been actual, malnourished, nutritionally deficient, distended belly, hungry? I have not. I would be willing to bet, most of you haven’t either. 

Real hunger is a tough concept to wrap our heads around. What would it feel like? Would there be pain, a burning sensation in the pit of my belly? Would I feel weak...faint? Would I have low or no energy? I feel that I would have trouble being pleasant. There are absolutely no good results of hunger. Long term hunger can result in degrading the health of our bodies and if nutrition is withheld long enough we can die. Happy Saturday folks!

Needless to say, as I sit here and patiently wait for Joe to get up so we can have a beautifully prepared, yummy breakfast on the patio, I am led to the third blessing of the eight blessing given to us by God, taught by Jesus and recorded by Matthew, the tax collector disciple. You may know these blessings as the beatitudes. I wrote about the first two on the days prior to today. The link to my blog is below. The third blessing is, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” In MUT (Monica’s Understandable Translation), it would read, “ God will blesses you, makes like good and satisfying for those that truly seek to bring about His ways into the Kingdom by being holy and seeking to make it a level playing filled for others.”

As I study, I find that some versions of this text substitute the word, “righteousness” for the word, “justice.” Because I am the way I am, I wandered on over to the original text, in Greek the word used is “dikaiosyne”, which means being in a state acceptable to God, living in virtue and living out justice giving each their due.

I pray a lot. I read scripture in abundance. I even read scripture beyond the amount found in the occupational hazard of being a pastor. I try very hard to allow Christ to work through me by the power of the Homy Spirit. In other words I “seek” to be righteous. But I read that the blessing comes in being “hungry” for righteousness (holiness) and “thirsty” for justice. 

Have I experienced pain in the pit of my belly in that search for personal holiness? Am I week at the absence of righteousness? When justice is missing does it affect my spirit resulting in irritability?

The passage also speaks of thirst. I have truly been thirsty. I few years ago, while in Uganda, I was teaching in an upstairs, shaded, room lined with windows. The delicious, African wind would blow through keeping us cool and comfortable. Now I had been instructed to drink! Drink a lot! Hydrate consistently because Africa is tricky. It is dry and you can dehydrate without even knowing it. And I did. I wasn’t hot, I don’t sweat. I was immersed in the experience of teaching and learning with students so hungry for knowledge I  missed feeling thirsty. After passing out, receiving a couple of bags of IV fluids and Tylenol for a wicked headache I was able to persevere. I learned how easily it is to ignore thirst until it is too late. 

What does it look like to require holiness and justice in my world, in God’s Kingdom so much that affects our life, our health, our actual functioning. I am not sure, but I know it means loving God most, and allowing His holy love to flow to others next. (The Greatest Commandment Matthew 22:35-40) I also know that love means NO hate. Love means not allowing the my judgement of others to obstruct the flow of love to them. It also means I MUST advocate for those who are suffering at the hands of injustice, even if I don’t understand it, or am not serving up that injustice. 

The blessing also says, I will be filled, or satisfied; the pangs of hunger, the faintest of thirst will be gone! They won’t be gone in my physical body. That will take farm fresh eggs, today. The Body that will be satisfied is the Body of Christ. Us...Them...All!

This is a lot to process. I need breakfast. But as I eat, my prayer will be, “God, give me hunger and thirst for for love, justice, mercy and grace for my brothers and sisters and put me to work for that to be fulfilled in your Kingdom. 

Today:

🥣 Look for a place to bring about God’s justice for others. 

☕️ Seek to be holy

🍩 Eat. You live in a developed country with access to food. But know, even some here don’t have the same access.