June 25, 2007
The Beatitudes: The Condition of Spiritual StarvationPosted by Bryan
Americans spend (on average) 47 percent of their food expenditures on eating outside of the home. For the most part, Americans do not know what it means to go hungry. By and large, The USA is a nation of abundance.
America is indeed a nation of indulgence. And the indulgence goes so far beyond food. In America, if you want it, you buy it. If you cannot afford it, you charge it. If you cannot pay what you charged, you just claim bankruptcy. The median cost of homes (as of 2004) was $221,000. Post-9/11 car sales boomed due to a clever marketing plan that offered 0% interest and equated new car ownership with patriotism. Video game sales, DVDs and of course pornography are all multi-billion dollar industries.
Despite this, there is a gnawing in the soul of many Americans. They continually strive to feed this beast whose appetite knows no limits. Indulgence after indulgence, purchase after purchase, extreme after extreme. Still, the beast hungers for more.
America is a nation of overweight, addicted, isolated, lost, rich-but-poor, full-but-famished individuals.
This hunger is a dilemma that God Himself addresses. He asks, “Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy?”
Truly, too many identify with the Scripture comparing such conduct to “a sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire,” or by an even more graphic conviction, “a dog returns to its own vomit.”
The heart of this problem is addressed in the beatitudes where God promises blessings upon those who are spiritually-mided in a world obsessed with feeding its desires. It truly takes a beautiful attitude to be open to God's blessings in such an environment. In an age of Drive-through consumerism with an extra side of materialism, the Lord promises, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”
It is worth asking yourself the question, “For what do you hunger and thirst?” The word hunger comes from a Greek root that literally means “to famish, or crave.” This hunger is extreme, more than a desire to nosh or nibble or snack or even dine. It is a condition of a consuming hunger. This is not the kind of hunger you get when you are watching a movie at home and think, “Hmm, I'd sure like some popcorn right now.” This is not the craving a pregnant woman gets that compels a husband to drive twenty miles one way to the nearest Marble Slab Ice Cream for a Chocolate potato chip and Fudge Swirl Sundae.
Rather, this is the hunger that is the result of starvation. No food for an extended period of time. No nourishment. No sustenance. No filling. It means to have a hunger, a craving, a gnawing, aching, need for something to fill the huge void in your body.
At the same time, the word for thirst has a root to it that means to yearn. It is the type of thirst you experience when you have nothing to drink for days. Your mouth feels as though you just ate a dirt sandwich on melba toast. Your head throbs. You get faint, weak, and delusional. Your tongue swells inside your mouth, thick from dehydration. Lips chap, blacken, then split. It is the yearning for a quench to this thirst, and if it be not answered, death looms nigh.
This is the condition of spiritual starvation.