Hunger Pains

Few of us living in America know what it is like to be truly hungry. Even the poorest of Americans would be considered generally wealthy in comparison to those in some of our third world countries. Therefore, when I speak of hunger, I am only referring to a perceived state of hunger. While none of us are starving, we all have experienced what we call "hunger pains." These usually hit us when we are approaching the time that our body is used to eating. For instance, if we normally eat lunch at noon, we will beging to feel some hunger pains as the clock approaches that time. Our body is signalling us to inform us that it is now time to provide some nourishment. We have disciplined (I know, its hard to think of disciplining ourselves to eat) our bodies to expect to be fed at the same time each day. When we veer from that schedule, these hunger pains begin.
While these hunger pains are real and can be quite uncomfortable, they will dissipate if they are ignored. If you do not eat at noon and continue about the business of your day, these pains will stop and they will not resurface until the next scheduled time for food draws near. In fact, if you miss that meal, once again these hunger pains will diminish and gradually your body will get used to not eating at those times and your hunger pains will go away. When you engage in a prolonged fast, these hunger pains gradually go away once your body realizes that you are not going to feed it.
These mysterious signals called, "hunger pains," also relate to our great need for personal revival. When you first came to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior you couldn't get enough of Him. In fact, you read the Bible, spent ample time in prayer, loved to fellowship with believers, and couldn't wait to tell others what Jesus had done in your life. As you continued to grow in the faith, you would experience an uncomfortable conviction when you missed church, another one when you failed to read your Bible, and when you found little time for prayer, those convictions would plague you once again. These spiritual "hunger pains" were reminders that it was time to nourish the soul. Unfortunately, as with physical "hunger pains," if we ignore these pains they eventually go away. Over time it became easier to skip church, our Bible reading became sporadic at best, and we found little time for prayer. We no longer felt the urge to share our faith; and, those feelings of conviction ceased to be felt the more we ignored them.
Now we find ourselves going day to day without reading the Word of God, finding little time for prayer, diminishing our time in worship and the study of God's Word, and almost never sharing our faith. What is the problem? We are no longer hungry. We have convinced our souls that we can go on without God. We have quenched the Spirit and we can no longer hear His voice of conviction. We need to once again become hungry for God and echoes the words of the Psalmist, "As the deer panteth for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God" (Psalm 42:1).