Dyin' to eat n' Eatin' to die

By the power of your hand, O Lord, destroy those who look to this world for their reward. But satisfy the hunger of your treasured ones. ~Psalm 17:14 (NLT)

One of the most powerful motivators for the human being is hunger and thirst. We will do most anything to appease our bodies, and not only with the bare necessities, but with the best garbage we can find! Paul basically foreshadows the culture we live in today in this passage:

For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. ~Philippians 3:18-19 (NIV)

Even the devil knows how influential hunger can be, as it was his first presented temptation to Jesus in the desert. Jesus was able to push aside the tendency of indulgence not because he wasn't hungry (and practically dying of it), but because he had another hunger that overpowered it. From his example, we should always remember where our true hunger is, and that the spiritual food we are provided (only by God) is the only kind of food that can truly satisfy us. It's a hard thing to see the value of spiritual food over that of our physical needs/desires, but it is always there, lying right behind the lies and temptations that come our way almost every day.

There is a song called "All Who Are Thirsty," and it speaks of coming to the fountain of the Lord to find our relief. It also calls out to the Lord to come (and fill us), which implies more of a dependency on God taking the action for our sake. The funny thing about that is, God has always kept his fountains flowing and all we have ever done is blinded ourselves to it. So really, our prayer should not be for God to come to a place he is already at, but to open our eyes to his gift of satisfaction and peace found in his mercy alone. Let's try to constantly remind ourselves that it is a spiritual hunger we should long for, and let us continually ask the Lord to renew that hunger in us each day.

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

~Philippians 3:20-21 (NIV)