Pilgr-image 08 - Hunger and Thirst

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. – Matthew 5:6

If a person hungers and thirst for that righteousness which God alone can give, God will not send him empty away, but God will fill him, until his longings are achieved and his soul is satisfied.  – William Barclay

There is an evil store in the small community in which I live but it looks pretty innocent from the outside.  It has been in business for nearly 100 years now and looks really innocent from the outside.  But it is a place of temptation for me in a big way.  One of the worst things is when I am driving down that street and a train is crossing about a block ahead and I have to stop just in front of this store and I can almost feel the temptations emanating from it.  For me to say that it is “evil” is probably not fair because it doesn’t sell “evil things” but instead it sells some of the best cookies and cakes in the area.  I don’t know what they use to make their frosting but it is soooooooooooo good.  They make these cookies in the spring and summer that are really simple – they’re just shaped like 5 petaled flowers but they load them up with frosting… (my daughter and I agree that cupcakes and cookies can sometimes be best defined simply as “frosting delivery systems.”).  Thankfully as I am writing this, it is a Monday and the shop is closed on Mondays so I can’t go get a cookie even though I can taste the sweetness of that delectable frosting. 

So, clearly I have a problem.  I have a massive sweet tooth and it takes a LOT of effort to be sure that I am not over-indulging.  But the other problem… I can get hungering and thirsting for the wrong things in life.  In Barclay’s reflection on this beatitude, he rightly lifts up the fact that what Jesus is talking about here isn’t just a “gee, I’d like to have a bit more of God in my life” but instead he says that maybe a better translation of this verse would be “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for all of righteousness, for total righteousness.”  These words are convicting to me and make me squirm a bit because I wish I could say that I hunger and thirst for God in the same way that I hunger and thirst for one of those flower cookies at the bakery.  I wish I could more regularly echo the words of the Psalmist in 42:1-2 where we read, “As the deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God // My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” 

God help me to hunger and thirst for you above all else.