Awaken Your Hunger

I cook dinner for my family most nights. I don’t mind cooking, and often I even enjoy it. But I have a little problem in the kitchen and that problem is tasting while cooking. If you’re the resident chef in your household, you likely know what I mean. I don’t usually follow recipes when I cook. I like to “cook from the hip,” so to speak, pulling together ideas that make sense in my head and usually translate onto the plate. But, to make sure things go well together, I taste along the way. Tasting your food as you prepare it in stages guards against over or under-seasoning. The problem with tasting as you cook is that by the time you get dinner on the table, you’re not very hungry anymore. No matter how delicious the food looks on the plate, if you’ve nibbled the ingredients as you’ve cooked, you’ve tamped down your appetite for the finished product. You’re not really satisfied by the little bits you ate along the way, but you’re no longer hungry for the main thing.

In his book on fasting, John Piper draws a similar picture of how we address spiritual hunger. He writes, “The more deeply you walk with Christ, the hungrier you get for Christ. If you don’t feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It’s because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great. God did not create you for this.”[1] Like tamping down my appetite as I’m tasting and assembling ingredients for dinner, I find myself quieting my hunger for God by tasting too many things that don’t satisfy. Sometimes it’s not the quality so much as the quantity: a half hour of mindless scrolling here, a couple of hours of Netflix bingeing there, the incessant input of a podcast or audiobook every time it gets quiet. I keep filling up my soul with so many things that leave me hungry but not for what I need.

When my heart’s hunger is rightly fed, it begins to yearn for what it truly desires and requires. When I push back from the table of the world and head to the table where the Bread of Life is freely and abundantly served, I find a true soul satisfaction that is so full of joy and rest and peace, I can’t help but come back again and again and again. I’m never sorry when I reject the small things and wait for the main thing.

What I need is Christ. More and more of Him. But what I so often settle for is less. So much less.

The more I feed on the Word of God, the more I hunger for Christ. The more I feed on the things of the world, the more restless my heart becomes. If I’m consistently feeding my heart the wrong thing, I will see the anemic fruit of that malnourishment. Too much scrolling? Distracted prayer time. Too much entertainment? Constant desire to be entertained. Too much self-indulgence or feasting without ever fasting? Weakness and grumbling at the first sign of spiritual discomfort. Too much focus on my desires? Little desire to serve others. To be clear, I’m not talking about asceticism in any way, which we know from Colossians 2:20-23 is of no use in fighting sin. What I am talking about is wanting deep, spiritual intimacy with Christ while dousing my affections for Him with love of the world. I don’t want to be satisfied with less when Christ offers so much more.

When I saturate my heart with Scripture, when I labor in prayer, when I sit at the table and drink from the Living Water and eat the Bread of Life, my soul is filled and somehow hungrier still to continue walking closely with Christ. The good news is that we were created for this. If we don’t feel hunger for the Lord because we’ve been tasting too many lesser things, we’re not left without hope. Piper says, “There is an appetite for God. And it can be awakened.” In my experience, this has always proven true. We have many clear biblical exhortations to live closely to God’s Word, to obey His commands, to say no to sin by delighting in Scripture, to grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus. These commands aren’t simply to make our lives busier or rigid with rules. These commands pull us close to God’s Word which, with the Spirit’s help, will have its effect on our anemic and apathetic hearts. When we sit down at the right table for the main meal, that hunger for the Lord will be awakened, strengthened, and satisfied. We’ll begin to hunger for what is best.

If you’re feeling little desire for Jesus, consider your diet. What are you putting into your mind and heart all day? Could it be that if you turned off the screens and opened your Bible, your appetite might altogether change? I know it’s ironic to read this on a screen, but as the poet said, “The world is too much with us,” and Wordsworth had no concept of social media or smartphones. We must make conscious decisions to awaken our hunger for the Lord by feeding it. Open your Bible often—daily even. Don’t fill every quiet moment with the noise of the world. Don’t settle for less when Christ offers more. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!

My goal these days is to put more distance between myself and the apps on my phone, and to put less distance between myself and my Bible. If I don’t desire God, then I will flood my heart with His truths until I do. The more I get of Him, the more I want. And the more I am satisfied.

If I don’t desire God, then I will flood my heart with His truths until I do. Share on X

 

 

[1] John Piper, A Hunger for God (Crossway: 1997), 23.

Photo by Alyson McPhee on Unsplash