Desiring Hunger

I was driving back to campus last night and happened to turn on the radio when an interesting interview was getting started. The woman talking was telling everyone the struggle she has had throughout her life to consistently read her Bible. This woman grew up in church, and was a strong Christian, but the habit of daily making time to read God’s word never seemed to stick. They used a metaphor to describe this situation that I really liked… Imagine someone came up to you and said, “I think it is so great you eat breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. That just amazes me, how on earth do you do it?!” We might say something like, “Well of course I eat every day, it’s not hard at all, because I’m hungry!” Our stomachs get hungry every day, and more than once a day (that’s pretty amazing isn’t it?!), but we don’t have to make ourselves eat; we want to eat our meals, because we know it will satisfy our hunger! They were making the point that reading our Bibles does not take dedication, it takes being hungry for the Lord. It might be hard at first, to carve out time in our day if we’re not used to it, but if we are hungry for God, we will desire that time with him and be overjoyed when we get to dive into his Word. Reading will become something that we feel we can’t live without. The woman mentioned before struggled to find the time at first, but she ended up reading her Bible out loud during breakfast to her kids every morning. Not only did she benefit from it, but her kids did too! She has even written a book about the importance of reading the Bible as a family.

So, my take-away is that I need and want to develop a hunger and desire for God that is so intense it seems only natural to daily read his word. I want Bible reading to become a habit for the rest of my life, and a joy, not something I feel I need more dedication to do. Prayer is a great first step. If you are in the same situation of not making adequate time to read the Bible, pray for God to give you a hunger that will provoke you to be daily in His Word. Some days may be harder than others, but if we have hunger for the Word, we will make sure to satisfy that hunger.

- SL

“Your words were found and I ate them, and Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; For I have been called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts.” - Jeremiah 15:16 (NASB)