Doves On Distant Oaks

Hungry and Thirsting

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.–Matthew 5:6.

The Bible uses the word righteousness in a variety of ways that have to do with our justification. That being, how we are made right with God. The Greek word is dikaiosunē (dik-ah-yos-OO-nay). In this context, it is used in the sense of following God's divine law. That can be applied to both the external sense as well as in the internal sense. Here it means in the internal sense, or making your heart right with God by following his precepts.

We often tend to avoid thinking about the Old Testament law because, after all, we are under the new dispensation. But Jesus said he did not come to change the law ... at all. Now notice it says to hunger and thirst for following the law, it doesn't say have had our hunger and thirst satisfied in the law. Our bellies can never be full, simply because we can't ever fully follow the law. We always fall short which leaves us always in a state of trying to do more. But we can either shrug our shoulders and say, "Eh, I can't ever fully live by the law, why bother trying." Or go after it, much like someone starving and dying of thirst.

Have you ever been deeply hungry, so hungry it hurt? I used to be a Boy Scout leader and we would go weekend camping a lot. One fall weekend was our survival weekend. We taught the young men in our troop about wild berries and tubers that were supposed to taste like potatoes, but never did. We would camp near a stream and try frog-gigging or fishing. Since we couldn't bring any equipment, we never caught a fish and only the occasional frog that usually ended up scorched to death. But just before we left, we gave our orders for foot-long double-meat Subway sandwiches. The leader who was to pick us up afterward would get them and bring them when we came out of the woods.

If you can image the sight of a handful of ravenous grown men and a herd of famished boys standing at the trunk of a car by the side of the road, pounding down that food, you can image just how hungry for righteousness we need to be. Hunger and real thirst—that dry, dusty, feels like an army walking through you mouth kind of thirst—turns your focus to only that. You don't care what anybody thinks, you don't care what you look like. All you want to do is eat and drink.

Are we like that when it comes to pleasing God in our hearts. Or are we just nibbling at it, eating like we're on a diet, and drinking little sips of water? Shouldn't we be gulping it down, so focused on obeying God that we really can't think of anything else? Shouldn't we be so intent on getting right with God in our hearts that it consumes us, not caring what others think of us. If we were to treat it like if we weren't able to please God, we would die, we get just a small inkling of what Jesus was talking about.