Hungry For Righteousness?

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."

Matt 5:6

Recently I attended an interdenominational Bible study, and the topic at hand was the Sermon on the Mount, more specifically - the beatitudes. We only covered the first four, but one stood out to me. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness...

A common theme runs throughout the beatitudes, and that is humility. I began to ponder the spirit of humility in conjunction with this verse. Physically speaking, how many starving homeless people do you see puffed up with pride? They will do whatever it takes to get food: steal, dig through garbage, beg. I'd say you have to be pretty humble to eat food from the trash. When you have such a basic need going unfulfilled - that need consumes you. Left unfed for too long, it becomes the only thing you live for.

We are all hungry and thirsty for something. Those that don't know Christ are like the homeless (in fact, they are homeless, eternally speaking). They will go almost anywhere looking for the "food" their soul needs. Money. Career. Sex. Material wealth. Drugs. Food. Relationships. In essence, they are digging through the trash heaps of this world looking for nourishment.

Have I ever found myself in the alley, digging through a dumpster right along side the homeless? Of course. I'm sure we all have from time to time. Yet we have a feast waiting for us. I'm awe-struck that we would ever leave a banquet table full of piping hot, delicious food and either go on a hunger strike or dig through garbage thinking we will find something better.

We are all born with a hunger for God. It's natural. Some don't recognize the hunger as a hunger for God. They just know they're hungry, so they seek to feed themselves. Some realize what they hunger for, yet allow themselves to sit and starve. But there are some who have tasted the juices of God's goodness and have bellied up to the table, napkin tucked firmly in their collars. There may be times when we wander back and forth between the alley and the dinner table. I hope when we are enjoying those times of feasting, we don't become so engrossed in stuffing our faces that we forget about those still digging through the trash.

We all hunger. It's a matter of what we hunger for - and what we chose to fill ourselves with.

Blessed are those that hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.