Five Signs of Spiritual Hunger

Let us put ourselves upon a trial whether we hunger and thirst after righteousness. I shall give you five signs by which you may judge of this hunger:

1. Hunger is a painful thing. Esau, when returning from hunting, was almost dead with hunger (Genesis 25:32). “Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them” (Psalm 107:5). So a man that hungers after righteousness is in anguish of soul and ready to faint away for it. He finds a want of Christ and grace. He is distressed and in pain until he has his spiritual hunger stilled and allayed.

2. Hunger is satisfied with nothing but food. Bring a hungry man flowers or music; tell him pleasant stories; nothing will content him but food. “Shall I die for thirst?” says Samson (Judges 15:18). So a man that hungers and thirsts after righteousness says, “Give me Christ or I die. Lord, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go Christless? What though I have parts, wealth, honor, and esteem in the world? All is nothing without Christ. Show me the Lord, and it will suffice me. Let me have Christ to clothe me, Christ to feed me, Christ to intercede for me.” While the soul is Christless, it is restless, and nothing but the water-springs of Christ’s blood can quench its thirst.

3. Hunger wrestles with difficulties and makes an adventure for food. We say hunger breaks through stone walls (cf. Genesis 42:1-2). The soul that spiritually hungers is resolved: Christ it must have, grace it must have. And to use Basil’s expression, the hungry soul is almost distracted till it enjoys the thing it hungers after.

4. A hungry man falls to his meat with an appetite. You need not make an oration to a hungry man and persuade him to eat. So he who hungers after righteousness feeds eagerly on an ordinance. “Thy words were found, and I did eat them” (Jeremiah 15:16). In the sacrament he feeds with appetite upon the body and blood of the Lord. God loves to see us feed hungrily on the Bread of Life.

5. A hungry man tastes sweetness in his meat. So he that hungers after righteousness relishes a sweetness in heavenly things. Christ is to him all marrow, yea, the quintessence of delights. “If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious” (1 Peter 2:3). He that spiritually hungers tastes the promises sweet, nay, tastes a reproof sweet. “To the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet” (Proverbs 27:7). A bitter reproof is sweet. He can feed upon the myrrh of the gospel as well as the honey.

By these notes of trial we may judge of ourselves whether we hunger and thirst after righteousness.

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