Have you ever been so hungry that once you were able to eat, you ate until you were so full you could barely move? Have you ever been so thirsty with your lips parched, your mouth dry, beads of salty sweat drying on your face and neck, so thirsty that you drank so much water your tummy sloshed when you walked? That is hunger for earthly food and thirst for water. Do you ever hunger and thirst after God?

Several years ago, my husband and I had an experience in which God become very real to us. Don’t misunderstand me, God has always been real to us, but this was like the difference between looking at a photo in black and white, and then seeing the same photo in vivid, eye-popping color. The very second we were intentionally going to be disobedient and do something God had told us not to do, the rear window of our vehicle exploded outward. Sending shards of glass flying across the driveway, as if it had been shot out from inside the vehicle.

You may say, Oh, that was a coincidence, but we knew it was not. Fast forward about 6 months, and once again, we were being disobedient in a different matter, continuing to go to a church where the word of God was not preached, where deacons are the foundation of the church, and where the church is a business. My husband played guitar in the band, and he loved playing with them and wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to the people he had been playing with for almost two decades. We were cooking in the kitchen and discussing how long we were going to continue going, maybe another month or two. When coincidence of coincidences, the back window in the car exploded outward once again. We weren’t intentionally being disobedient; we were just delaying our obedience for a later date that was convenient for us, not when God wanted us to.

God likes disobedience in His children about as much as we do in our children. Many tens of thousands of the Children of Israel perished in the wilderness, because they were disobedient, because they were hard-hearted, because they complained about everything. How atrocious and distasteful are those qualities to us: disobedient, hard-hearted, hard-headed, and complaining? How much more distasteful are they to God when he put his laws and commandments as guidelines specifically to keep us physically and spiritually safe?

It’s much like telling your son, we’ll call him Johnny. “Johnny, do not go into the street, it’s not safe.” We all know Johnny is hard-headed and rebellious. If you tell Johnny not to do something, he’s sure to do it. Johnny decides he want’s a ball that had rolled across the street yesterday that Dad forgot to retrieve yesterday afternoon. He crosses the street and gets the ball. He thinks, “Ha! That wasn’t so bad. Nothing happened.” However, on the way back across the street, Johnny didn’t see the car speeding down the road. How often are we like Johnny? We don’t obey clear instructions and boundaries that are put in place to keep us safe, and we don’t realize why they are there until we wake up in more pain (physical, spiritual, emotional, or mental) than we had ever experienced in our life.

When God blew out the back window of our car to make a point with us, twice at the MOST opportune time, it was more than one of Oprah’s AHA moments, it was one of those “be ye holy, for I am holy” Leviticus 11:44 kind of moments. I truly wish that everyone could have a similar experience that would instill the fear of God in them: both in reverence for who God is and what He’s capable of and also fear in recognition that there are consequences for our disobedience, and we don’t get to choose those consequences.

One thing you will hear (or read) me say a lot is that “one day, we will stand before a holy God and we will have to give account for everything we have done and said, including the very thoughts and intent of our heart.” We won’t be judged on our thoughts about what we think holiness is, but on His knowledge of what holiness is. We won’t be judged on man’s earthly law, but on the statues and commandments that God Himself laid out for us as boundaries on our behavior to keep us safe, to keep us holy and set apart from the rest of the world. As King David said over and over again in the Psalms, God’s statutes and commandments are not grievous.

One thing is for certain, once you experience God’s presence like we did, not even a mere whisper of His judgement, it is not so easy to intentionally be disobedient to God’s laws and commandments. As Samuel told King Saul, obedience is better than sacrifice (I Samual 15:22).  

This experience created a hunger and a thirst to be obedient to God in all matters. It also created in us a hunger and a thirst to know God and to be known of Him. We hunger to know who God is, the very nature of Him. I guess you could say we are on a seek and serve mission (pardon my play on words).

Sometimes obedience is hard, because our flesh doesn’t want to! Can’t you imagine us like little children clinching our fists in anger, stomping our feet, and screaming, “DADDY I DON’T WANT TO!” Our flesh wants to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. We need to remember that it is but for a season (Hebrews 11:25). Pleasures of the flesh do not last. , our sin nature that we were born into hungers for sin and disobedience, things that feel good in the moment, but we cannot forget that the things that feel good in the moment can have devasting consequences for us for eternity and for those who are watching our life.

Deuteronomy 4:29 tells us “But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.” Jesus reiterated this when He said, Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you (Matthew 7:7-8) I want to be like David, and have the testimony that I am a woman after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22, I Samuel 13:14). Do you ever earnestly and actively seek after God’s heart? Do you thirst to be more like Him, to honor Him, to obey Him in all things?

I love to do word studies in the original language through the Bible Hub app. What does this specific word mean in the context it is given? Though I am not a native speaker of any of the original languages the Old and New Testament were written in, I do like going back to the original as closely as I can and the Bible Hub helps me with this. Like a miner swirls muddy water and debris around in his pan searching for bits of gold, I want to glean as much understanding as I can from the Word of God. Let’s dissect the following verse a little.

In Matthew 5:6, our Messiah said, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”

Let’s look closer at that verse.

The literal translation given by Bible Hub is: Blessed [are] those hungering and thirsting for righteousness; for they will be filled.

Blessed is from the word makarioi. It describes someone who is enviable, someone who is in a position to receive God’s provision and favor, literally translated meaning to make long and large.

The word for hungering is peinontes. It means being hungry, needy, earnestly desiring.

The word for thirsting is dipsontes. It means I thirst for, earnestly desiring.

The word for righteousness is dikaiosynen. It means divine approval, as in a judicial verdict, referring to what is deemed right by the Lord and what is approved in His eyes.

The word for “will be filled” is chortasthesontai. It means to feed, fatten, and to fill to satiety.

This verse means that we will be in a position to be filled to overflowing of God’s provision and favor when we earnestly desire (both hunger and thirst for) God’s approval by doing what is deemed right in the eyes of the Lord (righteousness).

WOW! I’d like to close with a few verses from King David. Through the thousands of years, I love how God’s Word never contradicts itself.

Psalms 19:

7  The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul:

the testimony {law} of the LORD is sure {restoring}, making wise the simple.

 8  The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart:

the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.

9  The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever:

the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.

10  More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold:

sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

11  Moreover by them is thy servant warned:

and in keeping of them there is great reward.

Challenge:

When we were first Christians, we wanted to learn all we can about God and do what He tells us to do, but as time passes, I wonder if we are still hungering and thirsting for the righteousness of God like we did in the very beginning? I challenge you to try to get back to that place of hungering and thirsting after the righteousness of God.