Hunger

I am hungry at the moment. It's only 11:30 in the morning, I ate a normal breakfast of Sultana Bran at 7 am, and even ate an apple half an hour ago, but my stomach is still left wanting.

Last Monday, I was on the exact same schedule, exact same breakfast and I was going fine. Even without an apple. 

I was probably more mentally engaged last week, talking to a friend for 2 hours about life and university assignments and different denominations/cults of Christianity; that might explain it. Today I am trying to focus on actually completing a uni assignment which still seems out of grasp, I look at the screen, then my hands, then the screen again, but all I'm really looking at is my stomach. Staring back at me. It is the one controlling me. Not me. 

It's not even real hunger, its totally fake. I know it is. So I want to beat it. I have more rations of food in my bag, which is just underneath my seat, within reach. I could have a stale but filling, cold hot cross bun in my hands within seconds. In my mouth, into my stomach, up back into my brain within minutes. The energy threading through my blood, into my hands, my mind, back into focus over the next hour. 

I haven't really been reading my bible regularly for the past couple of months. I do have time, I don't have structure. I do have resources, I don't have the will. I do have the need, but I don't have the hunger. 

I have been fasting for days at a time, getting weaker and weaker, and even the time I do spend becomes quick hits, jelly beans, or bits of popcorn, instead of a huge serving of lasagna, layered with biblical theology, a right understanding of context, proper application into my life. 

I'm even learning how to cook. I've just finished a preliminary theology certificate in Biblical Theology. I starve myself to feed the kids as Kids Church, at youth group, in my small group, at bible study. That's not how God's word works though. 

Because, firstly, it does work. Without it I am losing to worldly influences. I need the Bible to fill me up, so that I don't waste my appetite on things that will never last. 

Secondly, have I misunderstood the reality of grace? Unlimited, overflowing, amazing, grace? Reading God's word is a joy that God shares with everyone. It's not something that is limited, finite. That's the opposite of infinite. 

I am hungry for God's word. I better go read it now.