Hungering for the God Who Became BreadSample

Day 2: The Hunger

Daily Bread

Genesis 1:1–2

John 1:1–18

Ephesians 3:17–19

John 14:23

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I was three when my family left Africa, but I still had yet to speak. I simply nodded and made little noises, like bubbles in a batch of brewing wine.

I was too full for words. My heart was like an oak barrel filled with Africa’s sounds and smells and colors. Dad and Mum were missionaries and carried us everywhere in their arms. And when they set us down to teach the blind how to farm or sew, my little brother and I toddled around on red dirt, mango juice dripping from our chins, the whip-poor-wills singing sweet and loud and the hallelujahs sounding from the churches.

We moved back to the white-snow land of Canada, and everybody closed their doors, and life became a lonely place. My dad locked himself in his office, and my mum disappeared inside her books. That’s when words flowed from my mouth from the pain that was brewing. All the pain spilled out of my mouth, and when it appeared no one was listening, I stopped eating. Because somehow the hunger pangs were easier to endure than wandering around inside the bare room of my heart. I ate less and less, and nearly died four years later.

And that’s when the Word came, and He filled me as no other words or food could. Nurses said I was a miracle at thirteen years old, that I shouldn’t be alive at sixty pounds, but God came and poured love into my heart, and He spoke over me and it was good. He carried me everywhere in His arms. And I began to eat again.

Three decades later, I returned to Africa, to its sounds and smells and colors. I found myself in a government hospital staring straight into the face of a starving child. He was seven, but he looked three, and he smiled like he knew something I didn’t, this boy who’d been abandoned by his mother and left to feed himself. And then I turned and saw a mother holding her starving baby. He was a year old, and he looked like a preemie. I couldn’t help the tears, and this mother, she looked at me and whispered, “Don’t cry. God is still alive.”

Her whisper was the loudest hallelujah.

I touched my womb then, the empty place my baby had left when she slipped out silent and still at just nine weeks. And I believed. I believed in the same way the Word spoke into nothing and made something.

And I wonder, friend, do you hunger and—do you believe? In that empty, bare room of a place where you’re wandering around, weeping, wishing someone would stop and listen, wishing the world would explode into color, do you hear the Word singing over you like the whip-poor-will, calling forth life? He longs to feed you the secret things that the starving boy held on to, the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. He longs to fill you with Himself.

Table Talk

There’s a kind of pain that eats you up until you can’t help but cry out, and I want to assure you, friend, Jesus cares. It may be the same as with the raising of Lazarus from the dead—that Jesus is waiting, and you wonder where He is in the waiting. But He’s coming, and He’s bringing a miracle. And that miracle is you. You are the living, breathing, bursting-out-of-the-grave miracle. Jesus is coming, and He’s going to pick you up and hold you tight and carry you everywhere. And you won’t be able to help but sing for all the joy inside. Just believe.

Prayer

Dearest Abba, I thank You that You promise to come to us and make Your home in us as we trust in You (John 14:23). Help us to trust in You. Help our roots to grow down into Your love. Keep us strong, Jesus, when the pain threatens to consume us. May we have the power to understand how wide and how long and how high and how deep Your love is. May we experience Your love, though it is beyond understanding, and may we be made complete in the fullness of life and the power that comes from You alone (Ephesians 3:17–19). Thank You that we can pray these Scriptures and believe it is done. Thank You for carrying us and for carrying our pain. In Your precious name, amen.