Posted on March 2, 2022
Walk This Way
Starving. That is how my boys come into the kitchen multiple times a day. And it does not matter how many dollars I might have shelled out to the grocery store clerk, we never seem to have the exact thing they need to curb their hunger. “Mom, there’s nothing to eat” is a lament I hear in my sleep.
It amazes me how these creatures of mine can be surrounded by food and yet still declare themselves hungry. I know that a day of school can leave you empty and longing for fuel. But how can you not see that what you need is right in front of you? Our cupboards are rarely bare. But their hunger is insatiable.
And I keep telling them that one day they will have to eat celery to keep their girlish figures. They laugh at my ridiculousness.
Hungry and unable to find anything that will satisfy is an uncomfortable place to exist.
Yet on a soul level, it is where I find myself as we step into the season of Lent. The world seems to be falling apart. The news reels spin on full of innocent people suffering, political leaders arguing, and war escalating. And here in the middle of it all, falls a Wednesday where the Lord calls us to reflect, to repent and to remember that from dust we came and to dust we shall return. But my tired brain wonders how to do this.
“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” Augustine of Hippo wrote this centuries ago, and on this first day of Lent, I find these words stuck in my head. The restlessness that comes from walking through a long hard season leaves me unable to be still.
I attempt to pray and search the Scriptures for the answers while at the same time scouring my phone’s newsfeed for updates on war. I cannot settle. Everything I need to be satisfied is right at my fingertips, yet like my ravenous teenagers, I stand before my Creator and declare that it is not enough.
Skittles, Fruit Snacks or other junk from the cupboard is what my boys will sometimes choose for a snack. They’ll wander away from the kitchen, but then quickly return unsatisfied and anxious for something more. Many times, I am unable to help myself and pull out the food I know is available, making them something real. Meat, cheese, fruit, it’s all right before their eyes, but they are blind to it.
Take and eat, I tell them placing plates of food before them, this is the real stuff meant to fill you up.
And the analogy is not lost on my restless soul. When I come running and hungry and declare before my Maker that nothing is working, it is always the easy solution I am seeking. I want everything made new. Now. The pre-packaged food of quick answers and immediate gratification seem good — until they aren’t.
And I am reminded of this little-known story from the book of First Samuel; a story of David before he was King David. Saul is the king of Israel and as David becomes more powerful, Saul gets jealous. Hoping to put an end to his enemy’s life, Saul chases David and a couple of hundred men out into the wilderness.
David and his men run for their lives, but they have no food and no weapons. Out in the wild, they come upon a sanctuary in the city of Nob and rush into it hoping for protection. They run inside the holy place starving and empty-handed. The priest there claims he has no food except for the Holy Bread which must stay untouched on the altar. And he has no weapons except for a sword from an old giant named Goliath displayed on the wall. The place is holy, quiet, separate and not of much use to these hungry soldiers running for their lives.
But David knows better. David knows God to be a Provider. He knows that the holy place is meant to provide sustenance and strength. He knows holy bread is for eating and ancient swords are meant to protect.
So, he convinces the priest to let him take the bread off of the altar. He gives it to his hungry men. Take. Eat. And he pulls the old sword right off the wall and hooks it into his belt. It will protect him. “There is none like it”, he says.
Then David and his men run right back out into the battle of their lives.
Eugene Peterson writes this about that story in his book Leap Over A Wall, “David and his men come into the sanctuary hungry and defenseless, and they leave with bread for the journey and a sword for the fight.”
My boys finish the food I prepared for them and decide that for the moment they are satisfied. “Who knew there was that much food in there,” one of them declares, “it looked like a lot of nothing.”
And isn’t that the truth? I think the same about Scripture and prayer and the Lord’s insistence that we repent and rest. How can they hold the weight of all I place on them or calm that anxious spirit that won’t stop jumping up inside of me? How can repentance and rest help anything? It all looks like a whole lot of nothing. Words on a page, silence in the early morning hours, surrendering to a leading I cannot see. How can that work?
We are so much alike; my hungry boys, David with his ravenous soldiers, and you and me.
We are needy.
We are hungry.
We cannot see what is right in front of us.
“Take. Eat. This is my body given for you.” A carpenter from Nazareth would break the bread and offer it to his band of confused followers. Bread for the journey and a sword for the battle.
“As the Father has loved me so have I loved you”. They would hear the words, but it wouldn’t seem like enough. How could that save them?
And then they would watch Jesus lay down his whole life for the sake of their hearts, and it would change them forever.
Just like it still changes us.
Because you see, here it is: The God of all Creation loves, you.
He. Loves. You. And he loves, me. And he knows how we doubt it all. He knows how we look around this broken world and wonder how we are supposed to fix it. But still, he walks into our empty places and begins to fill them with the only thing that will last.
Come hungry, he seems to whisper, And yes. Expect to be fed. Run desperate, breathless, like hungry men in the middle of a battle, like hungry boys into the kitchen. Turn around and run toward me.
It’s what repent means. It’s what we are called to do during this season of Lent. Turn. Around. Realize we are not enough.
And it’s often in the turning that we finally see what we’ve been missing. God’s presence was with us all along.
Love and repentance; holiness and earth running right into each other. We are called to walk into this season hungry for something different. Maybe we are a little beat up and battered; tired and fighting the cynic within us that tries to convince us it doesn’t matter. But still we come. We walk toward our Father, and we ask for what we need.
And it’s only then that we find the bread and the sword that we are given are his; his whole life for the sake of our hungry hearts.
And there we stand, amazed that it is always enough.
“Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall not thirst” (John 6:35).
Welcome to Lent, friends. May we feel our hunger for something more this season. And may we find that hunger satisfied only in Jesus.
Alleluia. Amen.
Dear Leigh, You may not have known why you were writing these particular words today, but I can tell you that I was one of the hungry souls that was fed by them. Thank you!