For the Kingdom of God is not food and drink -Romans 14:17
A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican,
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week,
But I'm damned if I see how the helican. -Dixon Lanier Merritt "The Pelican"
My fiancee Hana knows me better than I know myself, quite an accomplishment if you know this befuddled and oft twisted Gordian Knot. With an acute psychological prowess, rivaled only by the most ferocious of shrinks, she makes light work of whatever is going on in my head. However, her mind reading skill pales greatly compared to her skill to read my stomach. If it's true a man's heart is his stomach, then she's wowed me quicker than Justin Bieber in a throng of middle school girls.
How I yearn for her Pumpkin Dip with Ginger Snaps, her famous Dirt Pudding, and the world-renowned Smith Family Bean Dip! (Please give me a second as I wipe away the trickling trail of saliva lingering along the side of my mouth and attempt to subdue the sudden rumbles and grumbles of my stomach.) It's nights like this that I can't help but think that it's not a coincidence of cheap irony that the Greek word for "stomach" is the same word used for the inner hollows of a ship.
Yet, even more than my gut quakes for her cooking (and we haven't even gotten to her grilled mushrooms) my heart hungers for her presence. Tonight I hunger for her delicacies, but every morning, noon, and night I find myself starving for her company, her laugh, and her presence. No matter how I attempt to allay and subdue the gaping chasm and bottomless emptiness, there is no amount of Tom Waits ballads, pictures, or memories which can fully satisfy this superlative need to be with her.
Einstein once said that "an empty stomach is not a good political adviser." Esau would certainly agree; an empty stomach was enough to cause him to sell his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew (Gen. 25:29-34). Such hunger cripples a person; it digs at them subtly yet viciously. It changes someone, suffocates one's true self and replaces it with a stifled shadow of their true self, drifting like a phantom through the drudgery and monochromatic structures of the daily rat race.
But even in these moments of utter hunger and thirsting for her touch, her voice, and her company, there is hope. What a comfort to know that this semester brings an end to this distance and this hunger for her. I find myself counting the days, anticipating the rising eminence, and everyday finding some joy knowing that the homestretch is slowly shrinking. I cannot wait to be married. I cannot wait to wake every morning to her voice and fall asleep next to her. I can't wait to feel like myself again.
I hunger for Hana's Bean Dip and I starve for Hana's presence, but how often do I, or any of us, hunger for the coming Kingdom of God? How often do I yearn for the day when Christ's compassion and love is extended beyond the cruelty and disdain of humanity? On that day;
They will neither hunger nor thirst,
nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them.
He who has compassion on them will guide them
and lead them beside springs of water. Isaiah 49:10
Yet, we get so comfortable here and have superficially filled this hunger with knick-knacks and inordinate ends which really had no meaningful end to begin with. We have become complacent; satisfied with Dirt Pudding when what we really needed was the one who concocted and created that pudding with selfless love. Our hope is in Christ, whose act of the cross has opened the Kingdom up for us, that we too may share in the life which can only flow from him; a living hope from the redemptive power and faithful promise of Christ (I Peter 1:3-9, Hebrew 11:23). It is only when we leave behind the our current state and look beyond flashy billboards and the constant blaring din of bombarding noise that we may actually be able to truly realize that what we considered the solution to our hollowed hearts was nothing more than offal fill where the over-abundance of Christ's love and promise was always meant to go.
Until then, may your empty stomachs remind you of the full promises of God. And then, may you fill them with Bean Dip, one and all!
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