When was the last time you were really hungry?

   I Mean really hungry?

   On occasion, most of us have a few hunger pangs you get when its time for a meal. It's a little signal we get, like a growl in the stomach, that says it's time to eat. This usually happens when you have missed more than one meal and you have become weak and shaky and your stomach is contracting and creating acids that are reacting against your stomach lining because their is nothing there to absorb them. You know you are really hungry when it's been so long since you have had something to eat that chewing on a toothpick actually tastes good. You dream of a T-bone steak, cooked to perfection, smothered in onions and a little gravy, with a baked potato drowning in butter and sour cream on the side. You know you're hungry when you are trying to work and you are dreaming about fried chicken, rice and gravy and butter beans. You know you're hungry when you can taste the food in your mind and feel it going down.

   Along with hunger comes thirst. When you get really hungry you also get thirsty. That's when you have this dry condition in your mouth that feels like its full of cotton. Your lips are parched and you cant even get enough saliva to spit. You are almost delirious with thirst. You dream of immersing yourself in cool clear water, and drinking a couple of buckets full.

   Most of us have not really experienced real hunger and thirst. We've been a little hungry. We have missed a meal or two, and we have been a little dry. We have heard our stomachs growl a time or two, but somehow we did not actually starve, we found something to eat and something to drink. We understand this kind of physical hunger. Even with our brief encounters and yearnings for Big Macs and Pork chops, we can imagine what it's like to be in real hunger, with nothing but a dream to feed upon.

   When was the last time you were spiritually hungry? Not the guilty feeling we feel because skipped church, or bible study or Sunday school, but spiritually hungry. The guilty feeling we have is like a growling in our soul. It's our soul's way of saying that there should be something here for me to feed on but there is nothing. Spiritual hunger is discomforting. It is unsettling. The longer it goes, the worse it gets. It churns. We feel lost and we wander. We start complaining a lot. Our lives seem to get out of control. We panic. Frustration sets in easy. We despair.

   When we are spiritually hungry, we can't focus and everything is out of balance.

   Spiritual hunger is devastation. If we go to long with spiritual food we reach a point of starvation. We lose substance, fire, inspiration, faith and hope. A Christian who has lost, substance, fire, inspiration and hope becomes a bag of bones. God showed Ezekiel an entire valley of dry bones and asked, Son of man, can these bones live? The answer he gave is that they could live if they were fed the Word of God.

   As Christians, we constantly feed ourselves the word of God. It satisfies our soul. It's the thought that prompted the songwriter to say, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. sweetest name I know. Fills my every longing. Keeps me singing as I go.