Hunger Stays

“Through the blessing, through the bleeding, the hunger stays.”---Charlie Peacock

“All a man’s labor is for his mouth and yet the appetite is not satisfied.”---Ecclesiastes

Who is more content; the man who has millions of dollars or the man with twelve children?  The man with twelve children is more content---he wants no more.

On the surface we are all after the same thing.  We want more because we believe it will satisfy us.  The wise man knows that this striving for more is just chasing shadows.  I write this on the eve of moving into a bigger house with a bigger kitchen and a nicer view.  The house will add rich texture and elbow-room to my already comfortable life.  Underneath it all though I know it’s only shelter from the wind.

There is this constant tug-of-war between contentment and wanting more; really more balancing act than battle though.  Wanting more isn’t necessarily bad or evil it’s the heart behind the hunger that decides if motive is pure or self-seeking.  Yet I know that throughout I always have this deeper hunger for something that satisfies soul and delights my heart at a far greater depth than this world ever touches.

C.S. Lewis says that art, music and literature led him to realize a “…common quality to the three experiences; it is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.  I call it Joy….I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world.”  It is in the seeking of God that the joy is found; the fulfillment that caused Lewis to pen Surprised By Joy many years after discovering his own hunger for it.

The seeker looks to an answer for the stirring he feels when he hears great music or reads a classic novel.  The Christian looks to Him in whom we are satisfied and realizes that this side of Heaven---the hunger stays.