The Next Right Step

Hunger and thirst are normal, a part of life. When a healthy baby is born, that little bundle knows that it is missing something. And if you don’t supply it soon enough, that little bundle is going to let you know it. That’s how it should be. Hunger and thirst mean that we are alive and growing.

Sometimes, as we get older, not growing in quite the way we might like. If you have ever dieted, you know that one of the first “tricks” of weight loss is to make sure you do is drink enough water. It’s not really that water helps you lose weight. It’s that if you are dehydrated, your brain will signal you that something is missing and because the signal for hunger and the signal for thirst are closely related, you will think you are hungry and have a cheeseburger and fries instead of a tall drink of water.

We don’t always know what we need, physically. We are thirsty and we mistakenly think we are hungry. We do the same thing in our spiritual lives. We are born knowing that we are missing something. Sometimes it has been described as having a God-sized hole. We have a desire, a hunger, that we tend to try to satisfy with pleasure or possessions or power. St. Augustine knew the empty hunger and prayed, “Thou, [God] madest us for Thyself and our heart is restless, until it rest in Thee.”

Blessed, God makes large his grace for, those who are hungering and thirsting. Jesus is talking about hunger and thirst to people who knew what it was to suffer hunger, who might have meat once a week, who was never far from starvation. And there was no faucet to turn for clean, clear water. Water is scarce in the desert. Thoughts of thirst and hunger were continuous, never ending, never letting up.

Blessed, God makes large his grace for, those who are hungering and thirsting – for righteousness, the Greek word is Dikaiosunē, to be made right with God.

Professor and author Sinclair Ferguson writes about Kingdom life in a fallen world. “More than anything else,” he says,” righteousness involves right relationships – between ourselves and God, between ourselves and others, and in the world at large. That is why the quest for righteousness can never be a hard-nosed pursuit. It is born out of a sense of personal need, and expands because of our sense of the world’s need.”

Deep and lasting satisfaction for our souls doesn’t come from the delights of the world. It doesn’t come from a merely religious or vertical relationship with God. Satisfaction comes from God to those whose passion in life is to know him in the struggle to be like him in the world (John Piper, “Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness”).”

And we do that one step at a time, asking ourselves, “What is the next right step?” In this situation, in this interaction, what is right? What step leads closer to truth? What step leads closer to relationship? What step leads closer to community? What step leads closer to love? That is the next right step. That is the step that satisfies your hunger and quenches your thirst. Blessed are those who are willing to take that next right step. Amen.